De-Stress For Success with Isabella Ferguson
This podcast is about finding calm. I talk to the experts and bring you evidence-based practical methods to help you destress and live purposefully. In my early 40’s, I bowed out of a 20 year legal career “to spend more time with the kids”. However it was more than that. Decades of running on high anxiety and drinking to cope had had its toll on my nervous system and I was burnt out. I didn’t know it at the time, but from there I started years of recovery and ultimately stepped into a new way of living. I went to rehab, retrained as a counsellor and coach, created a successful counselling practice, became a motivational & corporate wellness speaker, took up painting and now support others to destress for success.
https://isabellaferguson.com.au
De-Stress For Success with Isabella Ferguson
Why Knowing Our Core Values is Key to Curating A Successful Life
What are your core personal values and why is this important to know? Well it helps us to understand our passions, purpose, make tough decisions and, wait for it, curate a life that feels successful and 'right' for us.
Embarking on a new adventure, I've recently resettled in the serene Adelaide Hills, exchanging (temporarily) the bustling Sydney life for a tranquil retreat. This move has sparked a deeper introspection about what truly constitutes a successful life, a topic I'm eager to pursue. With a focus on personal value systems, I invite you to join me to understand and align with our inner compass that directs us to fulfillment and harmony.
This episode is for anyone seeking to affirm their path or standing at life's crossroads, pondering the essentials that shape our existence. We'll explore how our earliest values can serve as benchmarks for satisfaction, and why aligning daily actions with these fundamental beliefs can minimise stress and infuse meaning into every moment. With thoughtful discussion, I aim to equip you with introspective tools to live a life in step with what matters most to you, ensuring each day resonates with your core values and vision of success.
ISABELLA FERGUSON
Free resource : "AM I DRINKING TOO MUCH?" FREE 5-DAY VIDEO SERIES
My web: https://isabellaferguson.com.au
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Hi everybody, great to be back here with you again. I took a little hiatus between episodes on this de-stress for success podcast Been a little busy. You may or may not know, but my family and I decided to upstump from Sydney and temporarily moved to Adelaide Hills. We did this late last year, so January this year was really about exploring the hills, the surrounds and all that it has to offer here. Just gosh, simply amazing. If you haven't been to the Adelaide Hills, put it in the calendar, try and plan a holiday. I am blown away by the beauty of this place. But you know, I am heartened by the downloads for this podcast, which were surprisingly many, and the emails asking about the next episode. So I'm glad to be back.
Speaker 1:Before we get started, just a question Are you doing a Febfast of any kind Sugar Alcohol perhaps? Well, if it's alcohol, why not consider giving up with the benefit of a mindset shift along the way? My signature Alcohol Revolution program now comes in either an online or a podcast version. It's self study, self-paced, and it provides daily episodes to support you each day of your goal to drink less or none at all throughout February, or any month really. So details of this are in the show notes. Now, if a group challenge to help you break free from alcohol, to drink less, is something that appeals to you, it's a more cost effective option to one on one coaching. I am starting to run quite a few group challenges this year. Now my February group completely sold out, but if you enjoy the idea of this, particularly for alcohol, why not register your interest for my next challenge, which will either be March or April, depending on interest? So links for this to register your interest go on the waitlist also in the show notes.
Speaker 1:A little focus going forward on de-stress for success is focusing on what does a successful life look like to me? I, you like many you say I don't even know what I like. I don't know what my passions or my purpose is. I've just got no clear cut goals. What are they? Well, asking the question is the first step, because we're encouraged to sort of find our passions as kids. But from there we tend to bash and hurtle through our lives throughout uni school, parenthood mortgages, and then we emerge often around well, the 40, mid 40 year old Mark or beyond and thinking, well, what's next? What about me? Am I on path for achieving the life I want? Well, we need to curate this. Easily said the done, I know, but a large part of knowing what a successful life looks like for you is knowing what we value in life.
Speaker 1:So today I'm discussing our individual and personal value systems. How would you define your values? What are they? Well, your values are the things that you believe are important to you, at your very core In the way you live and work. It's your moral code, so to speak, by which you can use as a reference point to make the tough decisions.
Speaker 1:I believe that we tend to be born with our values. You know, I'm looking at my kids. I'm thinking about what I was like when I was young. There were very clear patterns around what I gravitated towards, what I held dear and just the sort of person I was. So I really think there's a blueprint there and you know they're going to shift in life depending on what your phase is. But it's really important to know because they should determine your life priorities and, deep down, they're probably the measures that you're going to use to tell yourself if life is turning out the way you want it to. Is it sitting right for you right now? Am I living in alignment with my values.
Speaker 1:So this podcast is, of course, about de-stressing and succeeding, and I believe that life is less confusing, less stressful when we're acting day to day in alignment with our personal values, when the things that you do and the way you behave match your values. Life usually feels good, lighter, you're satisfied, a bit more content. You kind of do that check-in, you know at the end of the day or on a Sunday and you think, yeah, alright, this feels good, I know where I'm heading, life feels, I feel like I'm on track. But when you're not in alignment when you're living, when your personal values are not in alignment with your relationships, how you're allocating your time, the activities that you're doing, that's when things feel wrong and it can be a real source of unhappiness and inner stress. So, for example, if you value family but you have to work 70 hours a week, you cannot get to family sport, you don't have that quality time. You've got to likely feel internal stress and conflict. Another example might be if you don't value rivalry or competition, so you tend to be a person that leans more into peace, collaboration, but yet you work in a highly competitive environment, like I did as a litigation lawyer, well, you're less likely to be satisfied with your job, more stressed about having to front up and likely to quickly get demotivated, and this can add to that feeling of kind of you know you've hit pause, you're floundering about a bit in life. You're not living purposefully In these types of situations.
Speaker 1:Understanding your values can really help. When you know your values, you can use them as a guiding North Star, so to speak, for the tough decisions. So some decisions that can really benefit from a reference back to what your core values are are the big ones. What job should I pursue? Should I accept this promotion? Should I start my own business? Should I compromise or be firm with my position? Should I speak out about this issue or not? Tends to be things that we might ruminate on. Well, if we've got this reference point to go, well, what would a decision look like that is in alignment with my top three or five values? It's gonna really assist you to make the call, and then you gotta get better at it. Going on Knowing your values are also gonna explain why you might feel really upset at certain events that happen, whereas somebody else has not been upset. So, for example, if fairness and equality is something that you highly value, it'll explain why you get worked up, for example, by somebody cutting in your coffee queue or cutting you off in traffic, not letting you in, and you might ruminate on this to some extent throughout the day. So knowing this is because it was an offense to your values, and knowing this actually can calm you down a bit and you can reflect on the moment.
Speaker 1:Here's another thing values are fairly stable in your life. So I mentioned before that I think we're largely born with a loose blueprint around this, and it's probably highly influenced around our family, environment and what our parents value. And, of course, we make values judgments when we are confronted with situations where we think, well, I would have done something completely different. So that informs our values as well. But it's also worthwhile knowing that our values may change over the course of our life, depending on where we're at. So, for example, when we're starting off in our career, our success might be measured more by money, mortgage possessions, status. It might not be, but these things might be fairly highly ranked in your life. But later on, after this, success might be more measured in terms of family time, work-life balance, health goals, creativity, and these are then the values that will be prioritised for you. So let's do this, let's define your values.
Speaker 1:So step one, once you identify the times when you feel you're most empowered, fulfilled, happiest, proud, what gave you a sense that all was right in the world. I want you to think back in the course of your life, draw from your career, from your personal life as well, because this is gonna ensure some balance in your answers when you come up with these examples. Think of these moments. You might only come up with two or three, but that's all right If they were very clear-cut moments in the course of your life where you think, yes, that was me in my prime. That felt good, gosh, I felt proud. What were you doing? Were you with other people? What do you think contributed to your happiness? I've done this with clients.
Speaker 1:I often have a full session devoted just to value-setting because it can be so revealing and helpful. And here are some examples that came up in our sessions An overseas backpacking trip to Nepal. Another one said Tibet, studying abroad. So really making a case to parents that this was the course for you and earning money making it happen and doing that course abroad. Calling off my wedding last minute against outcry Wow. Finalising my masters, starting up my first business protesting for climate action, volunteering at Lifeline, standing up for a friend in a very tricky, unpopular moment, working in child protection, running a marathon, becoming a parent List all of the examples here that resonate to you.
Speaker 1:Second step step back. Simply really try and reflect on and highlight. What are the common things that show up here for you. Just list them down. List down. The description here is resilience, justice, peace, kindness, family, career, honesty, creativity, authenticity, adventure, independence. So you get the drift. What are the themes, what are the patterns here that stand up for you?
Speaker 1:Step three we want to think deeply about each of these descriptors that you came up in that second step and then reaffirm them or sink deeply here. Which of these values really warm your heart, spark inspiration? Give you a little kick of yep, this is me and try to whittle them down to three or five values, not in any particular order. Compare them, nominate your favourites. A way of whittling them down can think of scenarios that might apply where you had to make some tough decisions and which would be the value that you would call on to trump another. Also, with each of these values, do they make you feel good about yourself? Would you be comfortable and proud to tell these values to people you respect and admire. Do these values represent things you would support, even if your choice isn't popular and puts you in a minority? And finally, just have a reflection on what your nearest and dearest friends around you would say about you. How would they describe you and would their descriptions line up with these values? So there you go.
Speaker 1:This is a really good start to identifying your core values right now, at this point in your life as February kicks off, and think about them as you go about different scenarios in your daily life out there. Know that these values have been identified. Do they still ring true or do other values start creeping in and think about why. I really think that this is a real launch pad here. The identification of your core values is going to be a starting point then to learning what is important to you, how to make the good, tough decisions that come up in life, how to ease stress a bit. So if you're a person that ruminates, tends to catastrophize, you're going to have some guidance here that it might be because something is happening in your life that's not in alignment with a really key core value for you. Then you're going to know and you're going to perhaps think about well, what can you do differently that might bring your life a bit further closer into alignment?
Speaker 1:The second thing that I think is really important and we're going to focus, as I said, a little bit on this topic in this podcast is curating the life for you. That, I guess, is in alignment with your definition of a successful life, and I think knowing your personal values is a bedrock, a foundation layer for preparing this. So it's an important exercise. It can be challenging, but it's a central part of who you are and, more importantly, your values are a central part of who you want to be. And think about 2024 as a year where you might be able to really change some of the things you do to move you towards the life that you want to lead the person you want to be. It's going to lead you closer to really identifying the answers to those questions I had at the start what is my passion? What is my purpose? Am I curating a life that feels good, that is successful for me? By becoming more aware of these important factors, you can use them as a guide to make the best choice in any situation. Some of life's decisions really are and it's no surprise really about determining what you value most. When most options seem reasonable, it's helpful and comforting to know your values because they can be used as a strong guiding force to point you in the right direction. So that's all from me today.
Speaker 1:I hope this was, I guess, a really good, short, sharp episode to kick us off into February 2024. Look, let me know if you'd like some support in reaching any of your goals this February to de-stress, to quit alcohol, to give up sugar or simply to identify your values, to think in a more positive mindset, to set boundaries. Those things are key to really finding some freedom, some happiness in your life going forward. Send me some emails about topics, but do stay tuned. I've got a wonderful guest for you coming up in our next episode. It's a delight to be back here with you. I will see you next episode. See you later.
