How To Live Your Values at Microsoft

Some people say, there is no such thing as work and life … there is just life.   Others say, the line between work and life has blended and we spend more time than ever on the job, so we have to make it meaningful.   And Confucius taught us, "Do something you love, and you will never work a day in your life."

One way to think about work is it’s the ultimate form of self-expression, and it’s an arena for your best results.  

How you show up, the thoughts you think, where you put your focus, and how you lean into challenges, can either grow your greatness, or spiral you down.  In Young Guns II, one of my favorite quotes is, “You’re either growing or dying … there’s no in between.”

One of the secrets to “The Good Life” is to spend more time in your values.  Given how much time we spend at work, it’s only natural that if we can connect what we do to our values, we improve the quality of our life.  Or, worst case, we get a whole lot of chances to practice every day

Once you start to use your values as a lens, you start to understand why you prefer some jobs over others, why you like to work with some people over others, and why you like some companies over others.  Yeah, values are that powerful.  People fight wars over values.   The trick is to get the power of values on your side, so that every day, you can use your values as a way to move mountains … or at least hop over some mole hills that get in the way.

To use your values, you first need to find your values.   Here is a list of values and approach for how to find your values.    Once you find your short set of values, you can then integrate them into your day to day.  Here is an article where I share how to live your values.

Values are the short-cut to living your best life and finding work-life balance.   The reality is that work-life balance doesn’t come from balancing competing forces .. it really comes from blending with skill.

Comments

• Anonymous
  May 21, 2012
  I seriously agree with you, the values that are in us, should be the key point of the development of our work. I think some people are not as effective as others in their jobs, because they have different values, and some tasks are accomplished in a more effective way when they are executed by people with very clear values and get difficult to be executed if you don't have those values. The best way of finding that out, is to realize the best you can do and enjoy about your self, be capable of defining it and then take the action of practice that, instead of just ignoring it.