Travel to myself instead of Costa Rica

2021 was a special year where I found my inner compass. When my wife and I decided to go on sabbatical three years ago, we mainly were daydreaming about exploring countries on our bucket list, e.g. Ecuador, Costa Rica, Vietnam, or Sri Lanka. Now travelling will not be possible for the weeks to come.

I’m on tour to re-orient myself. Hence, in corona times, the sabbatical offers me the gift to spend time on journeys to myself, sensing the now, exploring the next, and connecting with my family, friends, and inspiring people. I’m privileged to reflect on this in my home office in a safe environment with a paid sabbatical.

Check inner compass

Re-orientation also includes checking my inner compass. The core values build the part of this compass that points its needle. Do the core values still resonate with me? Which are the values that I’ve embodied and that my environment perceives? Values help make decisions; they shape how I act, behave, and shape the environment around me.

Therefore, I was curious to read how they perceived me from my environment. Hence, I asked the question, “Please describe me in three tags”, to my friends and colleagues before I started my sabbatical.

Bare numbers are not very helpful for the inner compass

I’m not a fan of formal 360 Degree assessments where a tool asks some people with whom you work how they rate you regarding dimensions like e.g. “Self-Development”. Typically with a score ranging from 1 to 5. I did this kind of assessment 2-3 times at SAP.

When I received the results, it was always a “and now, so what?” feeling. What does, e.g. a score of 3.4 in the behaviour “Allows for disagreement to emerge and be discussed openly” mean? Usually, only very few people entered written comments as part of the assessment. So the value of this kind of review is low for me.

Experiment with my network

Asking one powerful question like “Please describe me in three tags” and receiving a multitude of answers from people across the company, from previous companies, from the life outside the company has proven to be much more valuable to me.

First and foremost, I would like to thank each of the 90+ people who have sent an answer. Each of the three combinations of traits and characteristics is unique. With this one question, I’ve collected more than 120 different tags.

The experiment has shown: there is such a diversity of perspectives regarding one human. Hence, it’s essential to go for quantity regarding the number of people you ask to share feedback. And of course, the input towards me always tells also a lot about the one who has shared it.

Tag-cloud for my inner compass

Nevertheless, people have shared some terms more often than others. The word cloud in this article encompasses all traits and characteristics. Moreover, it highlights the ones shared by many respondents with increased font size.

The top 12 tags – the tip of the iceberg – are #Curious #Friendly #OpenMinded #Calm #Caring #Empathetic #Creative #Inspiring #Reliable #Active #Committed #Structured.

The essence: a list of values

I’ve now used this input to re-visit my list of values that I had created some months ago as part of a Design Your Life exercise. Adding to the mix, I experimented with the approach shared by soulsalt in a blog post.

So, I distilled the core values from those three sources and are happy to share them with you as they will also serve me on the next steps on my discovery tour:

• Kindness #caring #friendly #empathetic
• Contributing #active #inspiring #committed
• Personal development #curious #active #brave
• Joy #happy #humorous #bonvivant
• Connection #empathetic #motivator #reliable
• Clarity #calm #focused #structured
• Gratitude #caring #reflected #positive
• Openness #empathetic #openminded #listening
• Creativity #curious #versatile #creative
• Holism #calm #mindful #balanced

How do you look for your core values?

I’m curious to read your answers. You may also send me a private message.

This blog post has been first published on my previous blog.

Categories: #coaching #discovery #fulfillment

Tags: #values #kindness #contributing #personaldevelopment #joy #connection #clarity #gratitude #openness #creativity #holism #sabbatical