Author: Georgina Newell, Women+Power Board Member & Manager, Operations Compliance at TransAlta
At certain times in my 25-year career, I have often found it important to sit back and reflect.
- Who am I?
- Am I where I want to be in life?
- Have I made a positive impact?
- Am I doing what I love?
- Do I work with people I admire?
- Who is my inspiration?
Sometimes the answers to these questions are obvious and other times the answers remain unclear.
Recently, I found myself at a similar crossroads. I felt like I had lost sight of my personal core values and I needed to reset. This led me to the realization that I needed to re-ground myself in the things I find most important and that I couldn’t do it alone. To do this, I needed help from someone I trusted and more importantly, someone who wouldn’t pass judgement.
Fast forward, I decided I would engage my coach to help me on my journey. She took me through an exercise called the Standards of Integrity (Reference: #Maria Nemeth – #ACE Academy for Coaching Excellence). I identified 7 qualities that resonated with me and these have since become my standards of integrity or core values.
Upon realizing that I am all of the amazing qualities that I identified, I felt slightly choked up and experienced the ‘having your heart in your throat’ feeling. It ended up being one of the most impactful moments I experienced in a long time.
These are a few of my standards of integrity:
I am smart, funny, genuine…
Included below is the #Standards of Integrity exercise. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Standards of Integrity Exercise (10-15 minutes)
- Get a blank piece of paper.
- Draw a line down the middle.
- On the left side write down the names of 5-10 people you admire. This can be anyone real or fictional.
- On the right side write down the qualities you admire in each of them.
- Go through the list of qualities and circle the ones that warm your heart.
- The ones that warm your heart are your standards of integrity or core values.
- Write down your refined list and place it somewhere you can view it often.
Your card will look like this:
These are my standards of integrity:
I am quality 1, quality 2 …
I know they are mine because I see them in others.