CHAPTER 06
DEFINE WHAT'S IMPORTANT

Do you believe the world is getting slower or faster?

Is the world getting more relaxed or more agitated?

Are we getting more certain or more uncertain?

Have I cheered you up yet? Because it's highly likely you've answered similarly to the thousands of people I've asked these questions to — and recognised that the world is getting faster, more agitated and more uncertain. Arghhh. As we've already covered in the introduction to this book, the world is moving at a rapid pace. Change is here to stay and it's not waiting for any of us to catch up and jump on board.

This all leaves us operating in a frantic state — shifting from one busy moment to the next before collapsing into bed. Only to get up the next morning to rinse and repeat.

In our workplaces, the collective impact of busy has a cumulative and contagious effect, because our ability to influence others is more powerful than we take credit for. An experiment done by the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences highlighted how contagious stress can be. Observers watching others go through a stressful experience were found to have an increase in cortisol levels. This response was increased when participants were observing someone they knew and cared for. This empathetic response can result in stressed and agitated behaviours when we see others behaving this way — meaning our behaviours are contagious.

THE COST OF BURN OUT

When we are in Burn Out, the cost is to our health. In this quadrant, we can be kicking goals, even smashing targets; but we're doing so at the cost of looking after ourselves. As we run from one project to the next, juggling ever-faster speeding balls, the first three things to drop off our list are sleep, nutrition and exercise. We lose sleep worrying about the sheer amount of stuff we have to get done (and will Brian¹ ever be able to do his job properly — seriously!), we grab food where we can and eat it on the run — fast and nasty is usually the choice — and the most exercise we get is running to catch the elevator to our next meeting. Our focus on these health behaviours goes to the bottom of our pile right at the time when more energy, not less, is required.

On a personal level, the impact of busy, particularly when we've lost sight of ‘why' we're busy, occurs across all aspects of our health — and health is not just about going on Weight Watchers and busting out Zumba moves. Eating and exercising well, although important, is still only a limited view of what encapsulates health. I've certainly had times when I've been eating okay and still joining in with my local running group, but the sheer weight of overwhelm leaves me snapping at the kids more than I should. So health covers other aspects of our lives, including relationship health.

Dr Lissa Rankin is an American physician who discovered something interesting when talking with her patients. While her patients were presenting with a physical ailment, when she asked them, ‘What do you need to heal?', the responses were things like, ‘I need to change my job', or ‘I need to sort out my debt', or even ‘I need to leave the relationship I'm in'.² These insights prompted Dr Rankin to expand our definition of ‘health' to include aspects of our lives that contribute to our overall wellbeing. Dr Rankin's work has identified that the following aspects of our lives have as much impact on our health as what we eat and how we move:

• physical health
• mental health
• relationship health
• financial health
• creativity
• spirituality
• sexuality
• work/life purpose
• physical environment.

As we explore the cost being in Burn Out has to our health, it's important that our definition of health involves these other aspects of our lives. We'll circle back around to some of these aspects as we start to unpack what's important in our lives.

THE UNIVERSAL TRUTH

Throughout my career I've been fascinated with understanding how different people respond to the same scenario or situation. For example, why is it that only 20 per cent of soldiers who endure horrendous atrocities in war situations will experience post-traumatic stress disorder, when 100 per cent of those people have a legitimate reason to experience it? Why is it that of two different teams in the same organisation experiencing the same restructure and unrest of change, one goes into complete meltdown and the other thrives?

Why is it that for some mums, five kids aren't enough? I have a brilliant friend who has three kids of her own, would often look after mine too when they were younger (making it five kids under five), along with ten chickens, two dogs, two guinea pigs and a pet lizard. And she would absolutely thrive for the afternoon. Put me in that situation and I'll be rocking in the corner quicker than you can say ‘Put the bubbly on ice'.

The question for me in this area of busyness was where does this sense of overload come from? From my research and work in this space, I can identify one place that this sense of overload comes from. It's the same for every person — you and me — and it's: you (and that includes me).

This is one of those pills I found hard to swallow, because what comes to mind is, ‘Yeah, but … you haven't been to my workplace; you haven't met my boss/colleague/spouse/partner/dreaded mother-in-law!'

The thing is, I've worked with people who are facing incredibly tough situations and teams who are driving hard change, and their sense of overload always comes from the same place — how those individuals respond to the situation. One of the few things under our control in the environment of relentless change is how we choose to respond to situations — and we always have a choice.

Now, you might be right in your reaction, and you might be right in how you feel. My question is not whether you are right or wrong. My point is, is your reaction serving you? If your reaction to a situation is making you feel more overloaded and stressed, it may not be serving you well at all.

Because the one universal truth is you can't do everything, and you can't please everyone.

Now you may well be thinking to yourself, Yep, I know that, Alison. This might even be the same advice you've given to a friend who's busting themselves for their boss and still being reprimanded for not doing it right.

You can't do everything, and you can't please everyone.

While you may ‘get' this truth for other people, however, one of the things us professional head mechanics know is that we often think different rules apply to ourselves, and that for some people a little voice inside is saying, ‘Bullshit — I can!' And those are the ones who will work late to prove it. They will bust their hump, work back late, take on more than they should and try to get it all done in the hope of pleasing everyone.

But no matter how many hours you put in, no matter how many people you try to please, this universal truth still stands.

You can't do everything, and you can't please everyone.

This might sound a bit defeatist and even negative. But ‘getting' this, understanding that we can't do it all, is one of the most liberating realisations we can have. Because now we get to choose what we do, and we get to choose who we want to influence the most — and the lens to making these choices are your values.

YOUR VALUES — FROM OBSCURE TO CLEAR

Values are a concept that has been studied and explored in great detail, with various definitions. Over the past decade I have worked closely with executives, teams and organisations to explore their values, and to me the definition that rings true is that values are the things that are important to you. They may be things you are currently living or things you wish you had more of in your life.

There is no judgement in values — they are not bad or good — they're just what is important to you. Others will have different values from you and that isn't bad or good, it just is. Recognising these differences allows us to understand why we get really excited about certain things while we may be nonchalant about others. On the flipside, your friends and colleagues will also hold certain things in high regard that you couldn't really care less about.

Exploring what our values are is a great exercise for two reasons:

1. Clarity of language: describing what matters to us, here and now in the current context of our lives, makes it easier to share this with others.
2. Clarity of what we can let go of: part of this exercise involves delving deeper to get clear on what our values are and what we're engaging with that actually matters to others — either other people or society as a whole. But if our actions aren't aligned with our values, they'll end up draining us. Name them and let 'em go.

Defining your values is about understanding your current context and putting a voice and a language to the things that are important in your world. The first step is to dive deep into what's uniquely important to you.

Defining your values is about understanding your current context and putting a voice and a language to the things that are important in your world.

EXPLORE YOUR UNIQUE BLEND

When asked to outline what matters, we can slip into default settings and respond with broad terms like ‘health', ‘family' and ‘friends'.

These might be true values for you, but I want to call them ‘boring' and irrelevant — not because they don't matter but because they don't provide any uniqueness that describes how these areas of your life matter to you. What is it about ‘family' that is specifically important to you? Is it a sense of belonging? Is it an ambition that you all share? Is it the way Auntie Mary gets everyone up dancing before the night is out? These same questions go for ‘health', ‘friends' and any of the other broad statements you find yourself saying. To get clear on what your values are, you need to delve much deeper. You need to get interested in your unique blend.

Defining your values is similar to the art of wine appreciation, which falls on a continuum from just simply appreciating the fact that you have wine — and the more in the glass the better — up to the subtle, exquisite palette and passion that a wine aficionado brings to the table.

When you start exploring the world of wine, you can feel pretty ignorant, really only recognising that there's red and white (and the good stuff with bubbles for special occasions). As your knowledge expands beyond the bargain bin, you can start to tell a sweet from a dry white, and how the full body of a merlot is clearly different from a lighter shiraz. The deeper you go into wine appreciation, the more your palette notices the distinct flavours and nuances in each class of wine.

The same is true for starting your values exploration. Dig deeper than those broader terms and identify why these aspects are important in your life. In terms of your work, what parts light you up the most? Do you love the connections you make? Are you passionate about creating ideas? Do you love nothing more than seeing a spreadsheet mapped out? Pay attention to where your focus drifted today and write down what you uncover. Over the coming days, notice the moments that energise you. Catch yourself in these moments and pay attention to why they matter.

IDENTIFY YOUR VALUES

From the following values list,³ circle the words that connect with you as being important in your life right now. These values may relate to things happening now or they may be things that you wish you had more of.

Highlight any of the following that are relevant for you.

From your list of highlighted words, choose the top five values that are relevant for you right now:

When you say these five values out loud, they need to resonate deeply with you. Picture what they mean to you. As you reflect on these words, consider how these values come to life for you. If you value family, how does this value drive your decision-making? What is it about family that's important to you? Are your values aligned to your current actions?

LISTEN TO THE RUMBLINGS

We're often told that what we starve decreases and what we feed increases. In fact, a Native American story talks about the two wolves that live inside us — a good wolf and a bad wolf — and how the one that gets bigger is the one you feed. But sometimes what you starve actually gets louder. If you've ever decided to remove sugar from your diet, you'll know how loudly your body reacts (oh, and make sure you don't need to think or function in society for a few days if you embark on this crusade). Being starved of something you crave just makes the craving stronger, louder and all-consuming. And unlike sugar cravings, cravings for your values don't go away.

When we starve the key values in our lives, they demand attention.

When we starve the key values in our lives, they demand attention, but they can disguise themselves in mini-tantrums. As I was writing this book, I had plenty of mini-tantrums as I battled with the sheer weight of a lengthy to-do list. I remember sitting at a cafe in tears, frustratingly believing I'd never finish this book — because when was I ever going to find the time? Without the guidance of a great friend, I would have blamed everyone else for my reaction. Instead, this beautiful friend asked me what I felt like I was ignoring.

The answer was that I was ignoring time with my kids, I was ignoring the message that I knew needed to be written in these pages, and I was ignoring the waxing appointment I'd put off three times. It was time to make time for these things — to listen to the rumblings and schedule them into my calendar.

KNOW WHAT PRESSES YOUR BUTTONS

One of the other ways we get clearer on our values — the things that are important to us — is to pay attention to the things that press our buttons. These are the things that annoy you, frustrate you and leave you feeling down right pissed off. Write down the things that press your buttons and, over the next week, notice if any of these moments come up. For me, what presses my buttons is when others talk over the top of others, fake-listen (do all the non-verbals, like nodding, but are really only thinking about which sushi they'll choose off the train tonight), or hear but don't actually comprehend what's been said. Listening is not simply waiting for your turn to talk! Arghh. This kind of behaviour gets me. Every. Single. Time.

What presses your buttons? Something does — that thing that frustrates you beyond just being vaguely annoyed, and moves into tear-your-hair-out, are-you-seriously-kidding frustration. The things that press your buttons (okay, we all know there might be more than one thing) provide clues to what matters to you — they are often frustrating because they contravene a key value. For me, the behaviours I described frustrate me because they directly hit up against my value of ‘sharing and listening'. Being able to talk to my team about how the importance of everyone having air time at our meetings stems from the fact that I value sharing and listening to different perspectives is useful. When you can articulate the value that gets rattled when your buttons get pressed, you have the language you need to explain to others why this is important.

EXPLORE YOUR TOP FIVE LISTS

Have you ever played the top five game? It's a game our family regularly plays when we're sitting around the camp fire, and the rules are pretty simple: all you need is you, company, a comfy camp chair and enough wood to keep the campfire burning. Someone suggests a topic — anything from movies of all time, to places to visit, to meals you've ever had — and everyone else has to come up with their top five. (So ‘top five movies of all time', and so on.)

As you get more concrete around your values, you can explore your responses to these top five lists, looking at how your responses are connected to the things that matter to you. For example:

• What are your top five movies?
• What are your top five books?
• What are your top five quotes or sayings?

How do your choices reflect your values?

Remember: when it comes to your five key values, knowing these off by heart with certainty and conviction allows you to get closer to understanding your unique blend of what's important.

Reconnect with those things that are truly important to you right here and now. Consider what action you can take today that will be connected to your values and then schedule those things in. Knowing what is important to you is the most important thing.

THE BULLSHIT OF BALANCE

In a time when obesity is at an all-time high (a recent study found that the obese now outnumber the malnourished 2:1 across the planet), we are more medicated than we've ever been and rates of chronic disease are on the rise, the cost of being in Burn Out is evident. The way to combat Burn Out is to come back to what matters to us — to define our values so they shift from being obscure to becoming clear in our lives.

Just finding ‘balance' is not the answer because that implies that we need to divide up our time equally across the week. Instead, imbalance your life towards what you love — tip the scales in favour of your values. Reconnect with the things that are important to you here and now. Think about what actions you can take today that will connect you more with your values, and then do it. With greater clarity about what matters to you, the next step is to design your life so that these values are amplified. This is covered in the next chapter.