The Hallmark movie season is coming, and that means the return of the stereotypical high-powered career female protagonist who has forgotten the true meaning of Christmas.
She has a corner office, thousand-dollar stilettos, and an incurable coffee addiction, but somewhere along the way, she has lost her own well-being, her sense of humanity, or her gratitude for the simple things. Never fear. Christmastime in a small town will restore it.
We love to love these movies, and we love to hate them. But what if I told you Hallmark got it all wrong? Because somewhere along the way, things got muddled.
Because the truth is: You can absolutely have career success AND a radiantly healthy + well-balanced lifestyle. You don’t have to choose between following the money and following your heart—no matter how much Hallmark tries to tell you you do.
If you’re ready to take an inside-out (HEART-based) approach to career planning that ends in success at work and better well-being, read on.
First things first, it’s important to establish what HEART-based career planning is not.
It is NOT:
Taking a HEART-based approach means intentionally aligning your heart + spirit to your work so that work generates energy for you and gives you a sense of meaning.
Your life purpose doesn’t have to be in your work—and it probably won’t be!
Many things drive a meaningful life, and when you align your heart + spirit to your work, your work becomes more meaningful—and that spills into other aspects of your life. When you have meaning in your work, you’ll feel compelled to make changes that will sustain your daily energy, starting and ending each workday with joy.
HEART-based is more than just a cute acronym (noted below). It’s career planning from the inside out. It’s about creating harmony among your body, mind, and spirit. It’s about rejecting the idea that you are two different people: a “work person” and an “outside of work” person, so that you become whole…all the time.
When you set HEART-based career goals, you stop to reflect on what’s next, learn how to match your unique skills and experiences with desired positions, and execute a thoughtful flight plan from your current position.
In “Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time” from The Harvard Business Review, Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy explore the concept of energy. The problem with working hours, they postulate, is that time is a finite resource. Energy, on the other hand, is not.
They argue that organizations who want to get the most from their people should worry less about time-based productivity and more about expanding their team member’s capacity for energy.
According to them, there are multiple types of energy:
How Flourish Careers Can Help
You can tap into the energy of your spirit—even in a metropolitan career—by ensuring your everyday work is aligned with what you value most.
Alignment is the foundation of my heart-based career planning framework—because you deserve a career that feels good from the inside out.
Flourish Careers is a career coaching and consulting business dedicated to helping individuals and small businesses find their unique path to flourishing professional success. Learn more about how we can help you here.