Thinking about your ‘personal brand’ is not just for self employed! Sorry. And yes I realise that most of you are cringing at this point. But bare with me.
If you are clear on who you are and your values, decision making does become easier; you know what you say yes or NO to; it will help you understand that icky feeling when you’re doing certain work that doesn’t feel right to you; it will mean you’re more likely to get where you want to be, quicker.
Since all of these things are the things that make work feel stressful to us (poor decisions, saying yes to please, having a massive workload, not getting anywhere), by tackling them you’re less likely to burnout!
Now I don’t mean that you need a logo and colour palette – but what you need are 2 words/ qualities (your values) that you want to be known for, or be described as.
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I’m working with a large consultancy firm at the moment advising them on how to tackle stress in the workplace (common), and one of the biggest issues their employees say is workload, extra tasks being put on their already stretched capacity.
Whilst one of the biggest jobs I have is to help the senior management see the issue they are creating and change the environment (hardest thing I’ll ever do), there is some ‘internal’ stuff each of the staff can do.
If each of them is clear on their 2 words then if a task sits outside of helping them move towards this then they say NO. If no is not possible, then you know to use little to no energy on that task (doesn’t have to be perfect right!) Working in a team, if everyone knows everyone else’s words, then maybe we know who to better offer tasks to i.e. where it will actually be in line with their values and who they want to be.
Using myself as an example, my 2 words are scientific? and vibrant?
If something is outside of these 2 words I AM OUT. I’m not one for mumbo-jumbo unproven by science (yes I am confronted with a lot of this stuff in the wellness world), so my classes are always super anatomically safe and not necessarily considered traditional yoga. For some this is awful, and they think that I am ‘ruining yoga’, to others I’m a breath of fresh air. In the end it doesn’t matter, because what matters is what I believe in. No you won’t find me teaching classes based in stillness, because my value is being energetic (and yes we do relax at the end of the class, often better because we’ve moved more!) and this means I don’t fill my time with the wrong classes, wrong clients, wrong feeling.
Removing the stuff we don’t actually feel we want to do and knowing why we’re saying NO helps us move towards a place less likely to be stressful.
Try it!