Aligning effort and purpose

Purpose: Aligning the how with the what

This case example aims to align the day-to-day decision-making, practice, and progress in action with purpose and meaningful work. This is about walking the talk and cultivating trust in and by moment-to-moment choices while in the unknown or new territory.

Case background

Sara* left her current job, marking the end of what she named “a 10-year cycle of constant burnout.” She shared, “I validate myself based on others’ needs and put so much of my heart and effort into something without consideration of how it serves me.” She has had several experiences of what it could be like to live in her purpose and bring herself and her gifts forward in an integrated and authentic way. “I’m ready to do what I’m here to do.”

* Name changed for privacy

• Application

  During a 2-hour session, we designed the inquiry and I guided her through an exploratory sensing journey of each element. See here for more information about the explorative sensing journey.

• Key learning

  Insights from a systems-sensing exercise will be unique for each individual. The journey helped Sara* get in touch with a deep longing to give voice to things under the surface. Her work wanted to be expressed in specific ways and forms.

  We inquired into the element of the decision-making capacity or what we identified as the space before decisions were made. She lacked trust in herself, namely how to read the signals in her body. During the sensing journey, she became aware of “a living pulse” that she could easily connect with during her daily grounding and meditation practice. Connecting with and attuning to this pulse and her own rhythm became a way she could gain clarity in decision-making. This is an example of building capacity.

• Capacities

  Leadership capacities cultivated:

  • Allowing our diverse senses to be active and to inform how we reason and make decisions.

  • Being centered and feeling a sense of stability in one’s calling

  • Being connected in one’s own body and able to show up to “the Work” through regular personal practice.

Guiding question

How do I direct and focus my energy, experience, skills, and abilities to align with my purpose?

---

Elements

• Self

• Decision-making capacity

• Work/my business

• Personal practice

• Resource

• Land/place

• Unknown

Tips

• You may want to refine the guiding question to include an overall intention such as “for the most benevolent outcome” or “for greater well-being.”

• We included a capacity related to making decisions we called “space before decisions.” See key learning about how this turned out. Feel free to play and experiment with elements that fit your context.

• The element “land/place” refers to the context that holds the individual or this inquiry and thus informs it.