By Chris Sansone
Part 3 of a 3-part series
You can use tools to deepen your awareness and authenticity and increase your presence, inner authority, and wisdom. Tools can help you create a vision that focuses on your work, career, personal mission, and life purpose. You might even want to revisit your vision regularly to adjust and hone it.
In order to be your authentic self at work and manifest your vision, you first must really know yourself and identify what gets in your way. You can use awareness tools to find the patterns that are getting in the way. Such tools include the elevator or mapping out a vicious cycle. An extensive repository of tools and practices can be found on the Hoffman website by clicking here and scrolling down to find Tools, Practices, and Audio Tools.
Do An Elevator
The elevator always begins with a question. First ask yourself, “What are the specific areas of my work life that I would like to explore?” Then ask yourself: “What are the unidentified patterns that…
- stand in the way of me achieving my vision for my career?”
- keep me from being fully empowered in my work?”
- drive my self-doubt at work?”
- make it difficult for me to show up authentically at work?”
Now generate an elevator question. (Consider signing up for the elevator teleclass and accessing the resources here.)
Map Out a Vicious Cycle
By mapping out a vicious cycle, you can discover the way that one pattern can trigger another pattern, and then another, creating a circle of patterns that land you right back where you started.
What specific situations trigger you into a vicious cycle at work? Make sure you map out the patterns you go into by asking yourself, “What’s the next thing I think, feel, or do?”
Write Out a Transference
What’s the cost of you being in transference at work? Transference – positive or negative – takes you:
- out of the present moment and into your childhood
- out of connection with yourself and the other person
- out of curiosity and into perceived certainty and judgment
- out of your power and into your patterns
Workplaces are full of potential triggers for transference. Identify patterns you go into at work by using the transference worksheet. Recycle all the patterns you identify when you map out your vicious cycle and write out your transference.
New Behavior: Be-Do-Have Versus Do-Have-Be
Society and your Dark Side tells you what to DO, so that you can HAVE what you think you need, in order to BE happy (or whatever it is you want).
Recycling/pre-cycling is a tool and a practice of receiving wisdom from your own Spiritual Self, which gives you qualities that lead you directly to new behavior, authenticity and the freedom to respond instead of react from patterns. You replace a pattern with an authentic quality of your Spiritual Self and take on the embodiment of that quality. You create new behavior from this embodiment.
- When recycling, you are using a scene from your recent past, where you acted out the pattern.
- In pre-cycling, you are using an imagined scene of you acting out the pattern at some point in the future.
Your Spiritual Self ultimately gives you guidance as to how to BE so that you DO what supports your being and HAVE what you need to support your living.
Tools for Spirit at Work
As you commit to using the tools, remember that your awareness is transforming, as is your behavior. By using these tools, you become more authentically who you are. Although seldom easy, it is well worth the effort.
Authenticity demands wholehearted living and loving – even when it’s hard, even when we’re wrestling with the shame and fear of not being good enough, and especially when the joy is so intense that we’re afraid to let ourselves feel it. Mindfully practicing authenticity during our most soul-searching struggles is how we invite grace, joy and gratitude into our lives. − Brené Brown, PhD
The journey toward authenticity starts with you growing and enhancing your emotional intelligence and awareness. What are some action items for you to consider committing to today?
Hoffman teacher Chris Sansone has a doctorate in human and organization systems, and holds certifications in coaching, organizational assessments and numerous psychological profiles, including the MBTI.