Knowing Your Values Can Lessen Your Anxiety
I was in a session last week with my incredible coach Sarah Watson. After 24 years of working in a marketing and communications function, I’m trying to define a new offering driven by my podcast and forthcoming book, The Anxious Achiever, and driven by the belief I have that our mental health and our leadership go hand in hand.
I told Sarah that I felt a lot of pressure to define what I’m offering with The Anxious Achiever. For 24 years I’ve been a digital marketing and communications executive and consultant. After that many years I think it’s fair to say, I’m an expert. But now: What do I actually do, and what can I give to people that is valuable-- and actually earns me a living?
As we looked back over my career, she noted that the common thread was me acting on my values. And my special sauce is how I say things. I’m not an expert, I’m not the most innovative thinker, but I seem to say things in a way people like to hear. Some of us are creators, researchers, executives. I’m a communicator. And whether it was being an early blogger writing about politics and working women’s lives, writing openly about mental health, or even me audaciously breast-feeding in meetings before it was cool, I do best when I’m grounded in my values.
I think that this is true for most of us. This is not to say that if you don’t work in a mission driven organization, your work is not valuable. Of course it is. You don’t need to work at a non-profit to be values-driven in your career!
But when things get hard, we need to be able to check in with our internal value system and ask, is this right?
Anxiety can cloud this process. My podcast guest this week, Carissa Gustafson Psy.D is an expert in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) a form of therapy that asks us to accept that our anxiety and distressing feelings are part of life. Instead, we can commit to changing how we respond. The linchpin in ACT is understanding your values, and having a way to come back to them when things get hard and your mind wants to stay stuck in anxiety. I have found ACT so valuable and wanted to share it with you.
Because that’s the thing: How do you get back to what you value when your anxiety is telling you everything is awful, including yourself? How can you lead when you're hooked by anxious thoughts?
In ACT therapy, there’s an incredible concept that teaches us that to become unhooked from our anxiety, we must tap into our values. Values define what gives our life meaning, and they can be very practical when you’re in the middle of an anxious spin.
Think about your values as a leader. ACT expert Dr. Russ Harris offers these questions to center your values:
What sort of person do you want to be?
What sort of personal strengths and qualities do you want to cultivate?
What do you want to stand for?
How do you want to behave?
What work fills you with meaning?
What can you offer to the people you work with?
And, what can you offer to the world?
For more, check out Carissa Gustafson’s Reclaim Your Life or Russ Harris’ classic, The Happiness Trap.
Try it and let me know what you think!