The Opportunity to Walk My Talk
The week ahead is going to be a weird one for me. Technically, I’m at work all week; I’ve got projects, meetings, clients — all that normal work stuff to attend to. However, my husband — who’s usually home and available to assist with childcare issues — is away at his annual week-long union meeting — his one-and-only work commitment of the summer — until the school year begins again.
In the past, I’ve generally chosen to take this week off in it’s entirety. The kids and I have hung out, played games, watched movies, had fun — all good stuff. This year, I’m going to engage in some of that. But because I sit on a couple of community Boards of Directors, as luck would have it, this is the week where they’re all meeting. And I don’t feel like I can bail. So, I’m going to be juggling things a bit.
Why am I writing about this? Well, it feels to me like this week is providing me a brilliant opportunity to walk my talk. As I look to the week ahead, I’m aware of all that needs to get accomplished — all that I’d like to accomplish — both on a professional and personal level. And let me tell you, there’s a LOT I’d like to accomplish. My general life philosophy, however, is all about balance — balance in the sense of honouring the values that are most important to me, as opposed to dividing my time equally. And this week brings many of these values into competition with one another, more often than not. So what I’m realizing, is that I’m going to have a myriad of moments where I get to model the skill of consciously choosing what to honour, and then allowing my choice to be perfect. This is going to be fun.
What I know for sure is that I’m engaged in walking my talk — or at least doing my best to do so — every moment of every day. Some situations bring the whole walking-your-talk thing into the spotlight. As a leader, knowing when this spotlight is on, and taking advantage of the spotlight as an opportunity to hone your skill is a good thing. So here’s my question of you today: do you know what your talk is? Are you walking it? And if not, what will it take for you to do so? Happy pondering! More another time 