Helping Yourself Thrive: Small Steps to the Life You Want

Helping Yourself Thrive: Small Steps to the Life You Want

by Ruth M. Schimel, Ph.D., Career & Life Management Consultant, Author

This approach is designed to help you create a viable, meaningful life through matching who you are with what you do and how you do it. Seems direct enough, but taking action can be challenging and affected by many issues. In your process of approximating a good quality of life, start with your own development, what you control. Consider also what you offer and receive from others, as your relationships and environments shift. 

You’ll notice that many lines below may relate to both your personal and professional lives. Add, edit or eliminate them to suit your situation. Then select a few priorities you want to address immediately. Re-visit the list every two to three months to see what needs attention and to keep thriving.

Primarily Oriented to Your Work Life, However You Define It

• How good is the match between who you are and your situation? Professionally? Personally? 
• What manageable transition can you design to integrate your positive past with your preferred future?
• Do you have a longer-term vision for work and/or relationships that opens a range of related possibilities ( v. just getting the next job or escaping the present one)?
• How can you expand, vary or deepen your repertoire of behaviors, skills and actions to enrich your work search process?
• Are you working from and enjoying your strengths? Name your top five to improve focus.
• What two capabilities do you want to develop to improve satisfaction or progress?
• How varied are your tools, data and processes? Do they lead to true self-appreciation and increased confidence?  Do they result in both analysis and synthesis of complex information about yourself and situation? Name two new methods you will  add and practice using.
• How well do you heed your own voice (v. first imposing an external template such as job title, ladder, track, linear view of progress, others’ definitions of success and failure, etc.)?
• Identify two, manageable, engaging ways to contribute to your professional development. 
• How much time do you schedule regularly to meet your most important professional goal? How well is that arrangement working for you?  If not satisfactory, what modest change will you make now?
• How well do your three top commitments align with your true interests?

Primarily Oriented to Your Personal Life

• Name two actions you will take to improve your quality of life: materially? intangibly?
• What three top matters related to health, relationships, resources or spirit need attention? 
• What two ways describe how you are providing assistance or sharing resources with colleagues, family and friends?
• Choose one way to integrate your preferred play with your work or relationships and vice versa?
• What are your five top values? How are they reflected in your everyday life?
• What you do is content; how you do it is process.  How can you use both to create better outcomes in one situation that is important to you?
• How can you improve trust and depth with a person you respect and like? Name two actions.
• Do you honor your intuition in choosing how you spend your time and with whom? 
• How can you make life’s natural complexity and ambiguity work in your interest? 
• What two or three activities give you pleasure? Go deeper:  What gives you joy?  How will you include them regularly in your life?

Create a rhythm for improving focus and making choices as well as taking concrete action. With whom will you collaborate for mutual benefit and enjoyment?

© 2022.  Ruth M. Schimel, Ph.D., Career & Life Management Consultant, Author

www.ruthschimel.com      ruth@ruthschimel.com     202.659.1772