Bev's Tips for a Better Work Life
Bev Jones' twice-monthly ezine offering you suggestions
for making your career more productive and more fun.

Dear Friends and Clients,

As a coach, I typically work with clients who are interested in change or growth in their professional lives or leadership roles. But even when clients come to me with quite specific career challenges, I tend to start by asking them about the broader picture of their lives.

The evidence is overwhelming: our happiness is tied to engagement in a meaningful career (whether it is paid or unpaid). But it is difficult to be productive and fulfilled in our careers unless we devote attention to each key area of life.

So when I start a coaching engagement, I often ask the client to step back a bit from the most immediate work-related questions, and create a picture of the full scope of his or her life. Some career issues can be addressed directly, but additional professional growth can be a byproduct of focusing energy on other essential concerns, like physical health, spiritual values or social and community engagement.

And I try to regularly try to scan the full scope of my own life, as well. In particular, each January I spend time thinking about key spheres of my life, and I envision ways to make each area even better. As I’ll discuss in this issue, I know that long-term career satisfaction is easiest to achieve when we experience well-being throughout our lives.

Warm Wishes, Bev


Consider All Forms of Well-Being
While Seeking Career Success
January 4th, 2011 * Number 139

A recent little book from the Gallup Press reconfirms an essential tenet of executive coaching: people with high career well-being tend to get the most out of life, but career achievement alone is not enough to assure a fulfilling life.

In “Wellbeing — The Five Essential Elements,” authors Tom Rath and Jim Harter say that the critical areas in our lives are interdependent. This conclusion is based on extensive Gallup research in which economists, psychologists and other scientists explored common elements of well-being that transcend countries and cultures.

The researchers polled people in more than 150 countries to construct a comprehensive measure of individual well-being. They concluded that there are five universal elements of well-being that work together to differentiate a thriving life from one spent suffering. These five elements won’t encompass every nuance of what is important to your happiness. But, the authors say, they do represent the broad categories that are essential to most people:
  • “Career Wellbeing” is probably the most essential element and relates to how you spend your time and how much you like what you do every day.
  • “Social Wellbeing” is about having strong relationships and love in your life.
  • “Financial Wellbeing” is not just about how rich you are, but rather about how effectively you manage your economic life.
  • “Physical Wellbeing” means having good health and enough energy to get things done.
  • “Community Wellbeing” is about the sense of engagement you have with the area where you live.
The authors emphasize that these are five aspects of our lives that we can do something about. If we are struggling in any one of these domains, it damages our daily life. But when we strengthen our well-being in any single category we will have better days, months and decades.

So how can you boost your overall well-being in the coming year? I suggest that you use the five Gallup categories as a starting point, and identify the six to ten areas that are most important in your life.

For example, “Career Wellbeing” might break down into two categories, like your day job and something else you are passionate about, like music, art or volunteer work. You might also want to more consciously manage other aspects of your life, like your spiritual practices, your learning objectives or your marriage.

Once you have identified your critical life areas, spend some time thinking about how each one might be a little better. Even if you do no more than envisioning specific aspects of the kind of life you wish you had, the exercise can be powerful enough to inspire small but important changes.

If you want to go further, for each area identify a practice or two that you want to pursue throughout 2011. Here are examples:
  • Enliven your social life by arranging a dinner with friends at least once a month.
  • Bring new energy to your career by identifying topics where you want to build expertise, or finding new ways that you can add value to your organization.
  • Enrich your spiritual life by meditating just a few minutes a day.
  • Enhance your physical health by getting to bed on time and cultivating new habits to promote sleep, like turning off electronic devices after 9 o’clock.
If you identify practices to bring into your life in the coming year, you are more likely to be successful if you keep some kind of log or journal in which you note your achievements. Don’t get discouraged when you get off track. Just start over, and keep a record of what you do accomplish.

Want to read other interesting books and articles? Visit Bev's website at www.ClearWaysConsulting.com. Check out brief book reviews, eZine archives and Bev’s blog. If you have questions email to Bev directly.
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Bevs Tips for a Better Work Life is published on the first and third Tuesday of each month by Beverly E. Jones of ClearWays Consulting, LLC. Bev is a lawyer and former executive who now coaches accomplished executives and other professionals to bring new direction, energy and enjoyment to their work lives.

Copyright ©2010, ClearWays Consulting, LLC Beverly E. Jones
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