While the pandemic lockdown helped many of us recalibrate our life priorities and gave us a new perspective on how we should spend our time, some of us are finding ourselves sliding back into the old familiar grind of high-pressure hustling to tackle the ever-expanding to-do list.
The root cause? Prioritization. When too many things are considered “important,” we have difficulty making decisions about what to cut. And this typically leads to exhaustion.
Gaining clarity around your priorities means you have to gain clarity around your personal values. The tricky thing about personal values is that they often shift as we graduate to higher levels of emotional maturity because we rely less on survival-based and fear-based thinking that makes us dependent on external validation. What you considered to be your values when you were a younger adult – in essence, the characteristics that drove your passions, motivations, and decisions – are unlikely to remain unchanged as you age.
One of the biggest changes in personal values for those of us alive during this era of human evolution happens when we realize that most of us were raised in environments that equated productivity to self-worth. Across multiple institutions and social settings, we were conditioned to believe that doing more meant being more valuable as a human being. When this conditioning is the main catalyst for shaping your personal values, I refer to the result as our Programmed Self because it’s the version of you that was constructed over time based on:
- What others told you you should “be”
- How others expected you to behave
- What you had to do to fit in or to feel accepted and loved
The problem with this “productivity = self-worth” paradigm – sometimes referred to as a Puritan or Protestant work ethic – is that there’s just not enough time and energy to prove yourself while also living a fulfilling life full of purpose and joy.
But hiding just below the surface – under those layers of conditioning, “shoulds,” second-guessing, and shame is your Authentic Self. This is who you are when you feel happiest, most at ease, and filled with purpose and joy. And this is the version of you that knows your truest personal values – the characteristics and qualities that mean the most to you – because they are authentically you and not what you thought you were supposed to be.
Find those values – and you’ll know it when you do – and you’ll discover the secret to living with a level of freedom, peace, and self-love that allows you to confidently know exactly what to cull from that too-long to-do list.
Want to go deeper? I recommend:
Sarah Jaffee’s Work Won’t Love You Back
Lindsay Gibson’s work on Emotional Immaturity
My 2024 book, Shifting the Energy: How Love Leads Remarkable Teams (includes an exercise to discover your authentic personal values)
About the Author
A former communication executive and global leadership advisor, Jessica Walter has been helping leaders solve culture, engagement, and communication challenges since 2002.
She spent 15 years on the executive teams of government, non-profit, and publicly traded businesses before transitioning into research and advisory roles, including senior positions at a global consulting firm.
Her research includes leading multiple studies on communication, relationships, and leadership effectiveness that included input from more than 200,000 employees across multiple industries, job types, and geographic regions. She recently published the insights from her research in her book, Shifting the Energy: How Love Leads Remarkable Teams.
In 2023, she was a featured speaker at the annual conference of the Society of Industrial and Organization Psychology where she gave a presentation on burnout and the joint responsibility of leaders and employees to reduce burnout in the workplace. Her advice has also been featured on CNN Radio and in HR Director magazine, Training Magazine, Training Journal, Exeleon Magazine, Mindful Marketing, Becker’s Hospital Review, and PRSA’s Strategies & Tactics.
Jessica studied Executive Influence at Wharton, earned a master’s degree in Leadership & Business Ethics from Duquesne, and earned a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication from Towson. She holds the Accreditation in Public Relations (APR) and certifications as a Leadership Coach, Lean Systems Leader, and Hogan Assessments Advisor.
She lives near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and is the mom to a former U.S. Army Paratrooper from the 82nd Airborne Division.
leadingperspectives.org 