I love my coaching sessions (yes, all coaches should also have a coach!) I value each session highly, eager to learn more about me. Today was certainly no exception.

For me today’s granules of wisdom were all about value and values – how do I add value to others, and how do others value my contributions, not just as a coach, but in all areas of my life including my volunteer work? In fact especially my volunteer work … where there’s often no financial transaction involved and less value is often placed on the contribution. And whilst in these finance-less instances there my be another type of contract, unless there is an actual transaction, a giving AND a receiving, it’s easy to start to feel as though you’re taken for granted and not valued.

And that’s when it often all starts to go pear-shaped … we start to ask why, feel resentment and our passion, energy and enthusiasm wanes. And it happens pretty quickly. This needs to be nipped in the bud so as to preserve us, our giving, loving selves, in our unique wholeness. Easier said than done. Well, actually perhaps it’s not.

Among all of our ‘doing-ness’ we really need to identify what we really value (or what ‘feeds’ and nurtures us) compared with what doesn’t feed us, but for various reasons we do it because we feel compelled to do so. That is our true personal values, as opposed to  what we think we value. It’s the heard, not the heart we need to listen to. Problem is often our head keeps getting in the way.

Enter the Titanic – yep that giant ocean liner of wisdom. We all know that it’s sometimes said that doing tasks can be simply ‘rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic’. So when is a task just a deck chair, and when does it become a life-raft? When does what I do (for myself or for others) become something that’s truly nurturing or valued – when does it make my heart sing? And when is it just a deck chair, that can be left alone to weather in the salt spray and midday sun?

So then came the REALLY BIG REVELATION: My head thinks my heart is a deck chair, when my heart is really the life-raft.

The truth is I’m a cerebral girl, and I live mostly in my head being very practical, rather than in my heart where I should be. I juggle facts and figures, look at the pros and cons, and consider all manner of things to determine the best solution to support the best outcome or the goal being sought. It’s what I’ve done most of my life, especially professionally since I started work at the tender age of 12 doing after school ledger book-keeping. And this so statement, is the crux of my journey as a coach – learning how to be more heart-led, heart connected and whole, and in doing so helping others achieve the same. It’s the very reason I truly admire Brene Brown and Amanda Palmer (more on Amanda later).

So enter the Titanic List. Today I started a list of 3 columns headed “Hell Yes”, “Hell No” and “Not Sure”. For a week, I’ll jot down each task as I do them placing them in the “Hell Yes”, “Hell No” or “Not Sure” column depending on how I feel about doing that task. “Hell Yes” I want a cup of tea, “Hell No” I don’t want a cupcake. “Hell Yes” I want to write this blog, “Hell No” on doing my BAS statement (yes, I’m procrastinating again). And opening my mail? “Not Sure”. Depends what’s in it!

Remember this is not an excuse NOT to do the task, just an opportunity to discover and explore my personal values. More importantly it’s a gift to see what my heart tells me is nurturing me, and what is not, before I get to ask the REALLY BIG question: What needs to change in order for me to let that task go, forever?

The answer, depends on the task, and on where I’m at (hence the week-long exercise, at least!) Sure there’s some volunteer work I’d really like to let go of, but there are commitments I have made to others that I need to keep (after which my coach asks why do I really need to keep them, what would happen if I just resigned?)

But the point is that rather being driven by the task as a ‘to do’ this Titanic List enables me to be consciously aware of whether a task ‘feeds me’ or not in terms of my personal values. And where it doesn’t,  I can consider what I might need to do to change its necessity going forward – identify what has to occur for me to never have to do that task again – hopefully in time before I hit the iceberg.

So this is all very big stuff. People often go on and on about living the life you deserve, following your passion, fulfilling your Purpose. But the bottom lines is that unless you understand exactly what your heart (or your Spirit as I prefer to call it) truly desires (personal values) and what it needs to be nurtured or ‘feed’ on to be complete, you have little hope of achieving that aim.

Last year I was speaking in Thailand on Business Strategy at the start of my presentation I asked a group of students if they knew what their ‘Passion’ was – what got them up in the morning, ready to jump out of bed and leap feet first into the day for. Most in the audience nodded but one student, David, put his hand up and said he had no idea at all. I must admit I was a little taken back … surely there was something he loved to do more than anything else in the world?

It was the following day when David came up to me and asked to have a chat in one of the breaks. Within the first 3 seconds he broke down and cried … the emotion was, in a word, palpable. I sat with him for as long as it took. I didn’t speak, I just listened and gave him the space he needed. It took quite a while for him to articulate what he was feeling. It was that he had just worked out what his passion was and what he was here to do. And it was mind-blowing for him.

That was a tender and really touching moment, heartfelt and open, warm and fuzzy for all the right reasons. I wish that we all get that opportunity, that ‘a-ha’ moment of realisation of real personal values, when we feel what it is that our heart and not our head connects to. When we feel the exhilaration like Rose did on the bow of the Titanic with Jack, the wind streaming through her hair and the sun on her face. Because it’s when we start to discard our deck chairs and embrace our life-rafts that real magic happens.