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Five ways purpose can help in tough times

February 1, 2021 by Alicia Curtis

The reality is everyone experiences tough times in their lives. The trick is to build your resiliency so the tough times don’t beat you! One thing that you’ll often find common in resilient people is the presence of purpose in their lives. That’s right – having a purpose in life can help! No one’s life journey is without detours, failures, setbacks, and challenges. Whether it is work challenges, anxiety, stress, unstable personal life, health challenges or family issues, having a purpose makes it all easier to bear.

5 ways purpose can help in tough times

1. Purpose Gives Us Clarity

Don’t get me wrong, having a purpose won’t solve your problems and it won’t ward off the tough times either (sorry). A purpose simply provides you with clarity when everything else might be spiralling out of control.

In his book, Rick Warren says, “when life makes sense, you can bear almost anything; without it, everything is unbearable.”

This clarity driven by purpose will make you unstoppable. Come rain or shine, you know what you want and nothing can sway you from it. You’ll see the obstacles only make you stronger and help you achieve your goals.

2. Purpose Leads to Emotional Recovery

University of Wisconsin’s Department of Psychology, conducted a study to find out the correlation between purpose and negative emotions.

The study discovered that having a purpose in life, helps us reframe stressful situations and allow us to deal with them in a more productive manner–leading to recovery from even severe stressful and traumatic episodes in life.

“How might higher levels of purpose in life contribute to the ability to recover from aversive and unpleasant events? Additional research is needed. However, having greater purpose in life may provide motivation to constructively learn from and reappraise negative events in an adaptive manner and avoid brooding and ruminative tendencies, so as to quickly refocus on one’s goals and purpose.”

Like the study suggests, a purpose in life allows us to build up a resilience muscle that keeps us strong even during hard times. You won’t find purpose-driven people being gloomy and ominous during challenging times, you’ll find them directing all their energy and focusing on recalibrating!

3. Purpose Gives Us a Greater Will to Live

Wow – this is impressive!

One study researched the connection between purpose with our physical, biological and neural health and what did they find…

“The present results showed that higher purpose in life was associated with greater use of preventive health care services and fewer overnight hospitalisations above and beyond the effects attributable to depression, anxiety, and negative affect. This outcome underscores the important point that psychological strengths, such as having meaning and direction in one’s life, involves more than being free from emotional distress.”

So greater purpose can encourage us to utilise preventative health care services and less hospital visits. That sounds good to me!

4. Purpose Helps Us Make Decisions and Smart Ones at that

“Like a compass, purpose offers direction for individuals when making decisions and formulating life goals.” – McKnight and Kashdan, 2009

Stuck on what decisions to make in life?

Researchers, McKnight and Kashdan “proposed five roles that purpose in life fulfils, namely: stimulating behavioural consistency, generating target motivated behaviours, stimulating psychological flexibility, fostering efficient personal resources allocation, and applying higher-level cognitive processing.”

In short – when we have a purpose in life, we are able to execute stable thinking processes and instead of taking impulsive decisions out of grief or stress or anxiety; we make smarter decisions.

5. Purpose Gives Us Hope

Last one is my favourite!

Purpose gives us goals, and goals give us hopes of achieving it with hard work and commitment. It motivates you to set higher expectations for yourself and your future.

In the book, Making Hope Happen, author Shane Lopez shares that having hope can be broken down into three areas: Goals, Agency and Pathways.

You have a goal to inspire you, the agency to believe you can achieve it and the pathways to know that no matter what obstacles you face, you’ll get there.

Time to seek your purpose?

Finding out the purpose of your life has the potential to change everything.

You’re clear about what you truly want and desire in your life, you know what matters to you, and you are constantly striving for that goal. It serves as a strong base in your life and whatever comes at you, this base will always be there to support you lest you fall.

 

Get started today

And this is just four practical experiences to help you find and live your true purpose in life! These practical experiences can support and inspire the self reflection and awareness needed to defining your purpose in life.

 

Want to join the Greater Good Collective? Launching 1 May

On 1 May, I’m launching the Greater Good Collective, a 3 month personal leadership journey to live and lead courageously to create a better world.

Check it out here to join us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Get this Free Guide: 6 POWERFUL SECRETS TO FIND YOUR HIGHEST PURPOSE IN LIFE

The world needs more purpose-driven people. But where do you start?

This inspiring guide will give you powerful insights to find and refine your own purpose in life.

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Filed Under: Purpose Tagged With: achieve, goal, help, tough times

Creating Inclusive Leaders

August 17, 2020 by Alicia Curtis

In an ever-changing, diverse world, organisations require leaders to look beyond traditional ideas and frameworks to shape leadership expectations. Leaders, without consideration and reflection, can often gravitate toward people that reflect their own personality, values and opinions. With diversity becoming a developing trend, organisations are now looking for teams with people from varied backgrounds, personal experiences, personalities, and ideas. With diverse teams comes the need for diverse and inclusive leaders.

But what does it mean to be inclusive? And how do you foster inclusivity in an organisation? Inclusion requires people to feel respected by and connected to the organisation and their colleagues, feel able to contribute to wider discussions, and feel able to progress within the organisation. Diversity refers to the mixture of different people and identities coming together in an organisation. 

A report published in 2016 by Deloitte outlines “The six signature traits of inclusive leadership: Thriving in a diverse new world”. From 2011, they recorded and interviewed over a thousand global leaders, consulted experts and researchers in the field of inclusive leadership, and interviewed over 1500 employees about inclusion in the workplace around the world.

So what are the key traits you need to be an inclusive leader? 

They are:

  1. Commitment
  2. Courage
  3. Cognisance of bias
  4. Curiosity
  5. Cultural Intelligence
  6. Collaboration

Let’s explore those further.

1. Commitment – Are you dedicated to diversity?

Being a more inclusive leader requires you to be committed to diversity. This is not only in the interest of the organisation you work for, but because it aligns with your personal values. Fostering diversity doesn’t happen overnight; it requires a lot of time, energy, and hard work.

The combination of your own personal experiences with diversity and inclusion in the workplace and the rational argument from a business perspective shows your commitment to fostering diversity and inclusion in your workplace.

So how can you show your commitment to diversity as a leader?

  • Put yourself in situations where you are working with people with different backgrounds to you.
  • Take the time to read and listen to diverse information sources
.
  • Highlight that fostering diversity and inclusion in the workplace is a top business and personal priority and encourage everyone to join the learning journey
.
  • Talk about what inclusivity and diversity look like within your organisation and invite different opinions.
  • Ensure your workplace practices and processes are improving diversity and inclusivity in your workplace.

2. Courage – Are you ready to speak up?

Being an inclusive leader requires you to challenge your organisation, its practices, others, and yourself. It takes bravery to challenge entrenched organisational practices and frameworks, but doing so will mean your organisation has the chance to become more diverse. Being able to challenge others and recognise your own limitations also takes courage. This humility will help you listen to different perspectives and overcome your own limitations.

Have you got the courage to be an inclusive leader?

How can you be a more courageous leader?

  • Reflect often on the biases and weaknesses that arise in your own behaviour and be willing to call them out.
  • Seek the advice and help of others to rise above your limitations, and acknowledge when you have made an error.
  • Encourage your team to respectfully identify when biases may be occurring in the team. Emphasize this is a learning journey for all. Make it safe for everyone to make mistakes and learn.
  • Question and dispute normative organisational values, processes and frameworks that encourage non-inclusive practices.

3. Cognisance of Bias – Are you aware of your blind spots?

Being an inclusive leader requires you to be aware of your organisation’s biases and of your own personal biases. These biases can range from unconscious bias, favouritism, confirmation bias, group-think, and attribution error. In order to improve the diversity within your organisation, you must develop your self-awareness and be prepared to act.

So how do you overcome personal and organisational biases?

  • Identify when you are most prone to your personal biases and organisational biases.
  • Take note of when organisational biases take over your better judgement during stressful situations or processes, e.g. recruitment processes.
  • Ask for feedback or more opinions when making or reflecting on key decisions.
  • Adapt processes to ensure that personal biases do not influence decisions about others.
  • Ensure transparency in decision-making processes, such as recruitment practices, and provide clear explanations to those affected by these decisions.

4. Curiosity – Do you have a thirst for knowledge?

To be an inclusive leader, you must constantly desire to learn and keep improving! To improve the organisation’s diversity, you must be open to different perspectives and to areas of knowledge that you are not personally familiar with. Asking questions and attentively listening to colleagues can help you understand multiple perspectives on issues that your organisation must deal with. This also means you have to be prepared for perspectives that can be vague and indefinite.

So how can you be more curious?

  • Do not be quick to judge those who hold different perspectives to you. Listen to what they have to say, and dig into understanding their perspectives.
  • Express your desire and openness to learning about new perspectives and ideas.
  • Ask for multiple perspectives from diverse people about choices or decisions to be made.
  • Anticipate change and actively encourage different ways of thinking. This can lead to opportunities to connect with diverse others.

5. Cultural Intelligence – how do you communicate with people from other cultures?

What exactly is cultural intelligence? This particular quality of an inclusive leader requires you to recognise how your personal experiences affect your perspective of the world. You must learn to look past stereotypes and be confident in your cross-cultural communications.

Cultural intelligence (CQ) is divided into four categories; motivational CQ, cognitive CQ, metacognitive CQ, and behavioural CQ.

  • Motivational CQ concerns how interested and enthusiastic a leader is in learning and developing cross-cultural communications.
  • Cognitive CQ concerns how much a leader knows about traditional norms, values, and stereotypes surrounding another culture.
  • Metacognitive CQ concerns how consciously aware of culture a leader is during communications with people from another culture.
  • Behavioural CQ concerns how appropriately a leader uses verbal and non-verbal cues when communicating with another culture.

So how can you become more culturally-intelligent?

  • Take the time to learn about other cultures, and create opportunities to do so.
  • Be prepared when leading a culturally-diverse team. This will include learning about individual members and their backgrounds, and changing how you approach certain situations or decisions.
  • Be open in your body language and succinct in your word use when communicating with
    people from different cultures and backgrounds.
  • Recognise your personal flaws and biases towards cultural stereotypes and differences.
  • Actively reflect and question your predisposed ideas about different cultures.

6. Collaborative – how well do you work with others?

Contemporary organisations require you to harness your team’s total intelligence to get to work, rather than individually strive to complete projects. In a team, you are more likely to meet and work with people who have completely different backgrounds, and maybe even opposing ideas to your own. The challenge here is to listen, be solutions-focused, and encourage independent, self-directed thought and debate.

How can you be a more collaborative leader?

  • Create an environment where team members will take responsibility and hold themselves accountable for mistakes they have made.
  • Ensure no one is left out of conversations or group discussions and activities. You should cultivate a safe and respectful environment so that your team members feel safe to speak up and discuss ideas.
  • Ask for feedback and questions about project progress from other team members.

In summary

Being inclusive is a non-negotiable. This gives us all a great opportunity to be learners and take our leadership skills to the next level.

Check out this link for the full Deloitte report. For further information about being a more
inclusive leader, check out this link to the SPACE2 Model developed by Include-Empower.
Where do you think you need to improve as a leader? Can you see yourself developing and
implementing the ideas we have discussed? I would love your feedback!

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Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: goal, inclusive, leadership, reflection, skills

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