This week’s theme: PRECEPTS.

Rules are made to be broken, when they aren’t serving you. As a rule, you’ll make better choices when you identify, develop, measure and adapt precepts that serve you. Regardless, the key is to make them serve you, NOT the other way around. Precepts are, in fact, guidelines and standards you set. I prefer to refer to precepts rather than rules, because of the nuanced difference. When you know what really matters to you from engaging in thoughtful focused self-awareness work, setting precepts to guide your life is as straightforward practice. The key is to align them with your values.

The Kick-Ass Koach podcast episode this week is a bit lengthy. I dig into precepts as a key element of developing self-regulation skills. In my newsletter I’m a bit political, reflecting on how the Trudeau government is struggling right now because of the perception they’re creating that they’re incapable of adhering to, or adjusting for the precepts they espouse. My Wednesday video (on LinkedIn and Instagram – March 6th) points in the direction of my signature story as an exercise in realizing a key precept. You’ll find an audio recording of my signature story near the bottom of this post. Furthermore, this blog post brings it together, exploring precepts as an entry point to becoming more self-aware and developing self-regulation skills that support you in being the person you want and choose to be.

Precepts as the Entry Point

Have you ever engaged in a values exercise? If you haven’t and you’re a few years into your career, it may be a great place to start. Know your values and the precepts will follow quite easily.  Precepts are the entry point to a process of developing a practice of self-regulation. A precept is a guideline or principle that guides your choices and behaviour. In this context I use the term precept rather than rules. Perhaps, it’s simply semantics, but precepts just suggest more choice and adaptation. Rules, on the other hand, seem less dynamic and open.

Being who you want to be isn’t as easy as you may think. You can make it a bit easier by setting a few key standards for your life. It is easier because you have a benchmark or foundation to guide your thinking and decision making. A blue print of sorts. This foundation will help you when you desperately want to react to others AND when you need to make the toughest decisions. Additionally, monitoring and adjusting your behaviour to match the person you aspire to be is easier as a result. The precept is merely a foundation.

What Precepts Matter 

Determining the precepts that will guide your life is a very personal journey. Moreover, it’s essential you review, measure and adjust these precepts over time. In other words, with experience and knowledge, it’s important to adjust your precepts. To practice self-regulation you must start here.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” —Maya Angelou.

There are many tools and techniques to uncover what matters most to you. A coach can support you in doing this work. At the bottom of this post I offer ways you can start working with me without spending a dime.

Building From Precepts to Increase Performance

When you want to improve outcomes or results you likely look at the data and assess what’s working and what’s not. Personal performance may not be as easily found in the data but when you’re willing to do the work, you can easily make the necessary connections. As part of establishing and preparing to measure precepts you may choose to look at your patterns. By first looking at values as a means to identifying precepts, you know what you’re looking for in the patterns. That’s why I encourage my clients to assess their character strengths, personality preferences, and values along with fulfillment, performance and learning goals. It’s often through this work, you land on the key precepts.

Once you have identified your key precepts, you can refine the ways you measure and test both their importance and your capacity to live by them. You are able to adjust and improve your performance now that you are measuring yourself against your precepts. This requires dedication to progressive self-awareness. It is difficult work and it is worth the effort.

Self-Regulation

Self-regulation is an element that runs through my BYI system, making an appearance in a few of the 7 core concepts. It actually is a significant driver of one of the three benefits: belonging. Ray Baumeister, in a lot of his research and writing, seems to be arguing that belonging, which Maslow puts at the mid point of the hierarchy of needs, is more foundational than we often realize or accept. There is also a connection made between your ability to self-regulate and build the deepest and most meaningful connections AND the touch-point connections that are especially essential in your career.

What is It?

Self-regulation is the ability to adopt and adapt a system of conscious personal management that involves the process of guiding one’s own thoughts, behaviors, and feelings to reach goals. Baumeister’s research has linked self-regulation to cognitive processing, emotional patterns, behavioural responses and health & wellness. My BYI system explores the significance of all four of these. The three components, as described earlier in the post, are most clearly articulated in these three steps:

1. Set the precepts that you want as a guide to your life.
2. Develop a score card of measures that clearly reflect whether you are abiding by your standards.
3. Design a practice or an experiment to assess where improvement is possible and where changes to the precepts or a different  means of evaluating your growth will add value.

Why Do the Work?

The ability to consciously choose behaviours that are constructive and effective is essential. Especially, when you want to build a sustainable, successful and progressive career.  Listen to my Signature Story – Rox’s Big Why Story –  using the audio link in the footer. I share how I needed to learn a key self-regulation skill in my late 30’s to ensure my success in a senior role. Moreover, during the timeline of the story, I hadn’t learned about precepts and I didn’t have a model to manage my reactions. However, after being fired (early in the story) and then recruited into the business world in finance, I learned quickly by feeling the sting of judgment and gender discrimination. My little story below reveals one example.

Doing the work to build self-awareness is not only worth the effort to improve the outcomes in your career, it improves your life. Joy and meaning and self-actualization are really attainable, regardless of the profession and role you play in your work. These highly desirable feelings or sensations are available to you regardless of your boss, your company’s policies, your current financial situation. In fact when you do this work all those areas in which you commonly struggle, may become less central to your life OR your experience with them may change for the better. By simply doing the work, you will see things differently. AND, as my motto from Max Planck says, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

A Little Story…

One day, during a weekly status meeting with the branch, I was called out by one of my peers in front of my boss, his boss and the Regional VP. Apparently my confident presence when engaging with clients put some of the men (I was the only woman). This peer, who I thought was a good friend, addressed the room and specifically the Director and RVP. He accused me, among other points, of making clients feel I was the boss in the office. I felt shocked listening to all the assertions. The Director, to his credit, shut down the attack by saying something like, “Roxanne is projecting authority and confidence, making our clients feel well-served. YOU would do well to watch and learn rather than revealing to the entire branch just how threatened you feel by her.”

I appreciated his defense. It became clear to me after reflecting, I needed to set some boundaries and establish the standards for how I was willing to be treated. NOW, I have precepts around this. Then I saw it as showing my metal. I sat quietly through the rest of the meeting as I considered my best response. As the meeting closed I got up and walked across the room and stepped into Ron’s space and said something like, “Don’t you ever try to diminish me that way again. I’m now on notice and I’ll be prepared to respond fiercely next time. And, don’t think I won’t return fire for fire.” I was firm, aligned with my values, professional and clear about what mattered to me.

Walk With Me…

Is finding purpose and meaning in your life and in your career important to you?

Are you ready to unpack the tough stuff so you can find your north star?

Is your career all that you want it to be and more? If you answered yes to this last one, I’m so happy for you. Don’t you want that for everyone you know? THEN, pass on my message to everyone in your network in case it resonates for them.

Want to learn to #unpack4impact? Willing to do the work to search for meaning?

Once you have the skills to unpack the emotions and barriers and triggers and mindset challenges with the skills in my BYI system, you’ll begin to see the impact in your career and you’ll find what matters most to you. Join me…

My goal is to make my system accessible and affordable. There are many ways you can engage with me….below you’ll find THREE to get started, without spending a dime.

WALK WITH ME…

• REGISTER for an ASK ROX RoundTable… TWO 50 minute engagements on ZOOM per month limited to 12 participants in each. 
• BOOK  a complimentary exploratory conversation 15-20 minutes.
• SUBSCRIBE to my mailing list from my home page, receive an interactive exercise helping you cope with stress, and a weekly reflection.

  

  Walk with Me!

Of course I’d love to work with you, your team or organization so…

• Book me to speak at your conference or to a group in your organization. My workshops on building resilience, improving relationships, and increasing performance are popular.