Turn your values into Verbs: Kindness and Compassion
Turn your values into Verbs: Kindness and Compassion
In this NEW blog series, Turn Your Values into Verbs, I will review my top 10 values and how I use them in my business as I begin a new coaching service in 2023. This year, what I learned about myself was the kind of clients I serve well, and that is someone with a team, but what I kept discovering is that the people who were finding me didn’t have a team; they were individuals who wanted to build something extraordinary to support their existing business. Or they want to start a new business with a community-led approach. This is where my new offerings will begin to shine well, and what I learned was that so many people need support in mindset and motivation and want to find calm but struggle with endless opportunities.
In the past blog post, I mentioned how I went “to niche” in the past few years, and now I want to branch out to those who’ve seemed to fit into the “light me up” box. This is tricky because there are a few elements at play. I’ll share with you that since quitting my corporate job in 2019 and pivoting to community building in 2020, I have learned a lot about balancing kindness and compassion for myself and others.
The word kindness is described as being friendly, generous, and considerate. In my daily life, I intend to be kind to others. Everyone has something of value to say, and I want to offer space for kindness. I also desire to be treated kindly by friends, family, and professional relationships.
To me, kindness is a warm heart, welcoming attitude, and reassurance of importance. It’s one of my top values because I believe it is the most important trait I want to receive and the one I struggle with giving in all moments of my life. Sometimes, I need help being kind, and sometimes, others need a nudge towards kindness. What this looks like in my business is working with clients who appreciate my kind approach to coaching and giving positive feedback.
I enjoy acknowledging when clients are working hard and that they could use a word of kindness at that moment. Building a business on your own is hard, so when I work with clients, I experience a sense of kindness because we both get it. An example is when a client reached out to support me in a moment of challenge and told me I was on the right path. I needed a moment of kindness, and when that client reached back out about what she’s working on, I was able to provide her with support and kindness because I believe that we have a mutual respect for and understanding of each other and how we want to thrive in the world.
How I work with clients and incorporate kindness will look different for each person, but it’s in the awareness of the moments when kindness is needed that I work to become more successful. There’s also a point in which kindness leads to giving too much to others. This happens a lot for new community builders. Giving all of our time, energy, and effort into relationships leaves us without a sense of belonging or feeling disconnected, so finding a place where you can be a community member is essential. The same goes for new business owners; sometimes, it’s helpful to step back and offer kindness in times of challenge. It’s not all about money; the time, energy, and effort that you put into your business leave little time for self-care. This was a big thing that I struggled with over the past two years and is why I am now changing directions regarding my business. I want more space and time to develop kindness for myself.
In my understanding of compassion, it’s the recognition that there is suffering. We all experience varied levels of suffering, and compassion is a person’s ability to recognize (be mindful) that we experience suffering. The difference between being “kind” and profoundly understanding that we all suffer and that in moments of challenge is being a compassionate person who can recognize that it is a moment of sadness or suffering and acknowledge it instead of pushing it away or hiding the suffering.
This is the key to building a business and working relationship that implements compassion. I practice showing up as my authentic self and encourage others to be their authentic self by offering support so that they are accepted and welcomed no matter the circumstances. This demonstrates a desire to provide caring support to individuals when they are experiencing difficult emotions or feeling overwhelmed.
I demonstrate compassion for others in my business by setting expectations that match what both of us want to accomplish together and with an understanding that we are learning, developing, and growing all the time. This looks like listening to a client fully and working on letting them feel seen, valued, and heard. What this means for me is that I ask for the same values of my clients, that they bring their challenges to a session with an understanding of compassion.
For my client work, it looks like a client stating a problem that he/she/they have and confirming what is needed from me to help them best.
Compassion takes practice and a willingness to have an open dialogue with another human being who also might be having a difficult time. Understanding that life is hard, but that together, we can help each other move past our suffering and get right to the heart of joy! This is the kind of work I want to be doing in 2023. I want to offer a “safe space” for individuals to work with me in a container where they can get their needs met and where I can help them along their path. It’s not about “a right way” or a “wrong way,” but about the BEST WAY for each individual to move forward in designing a business that will work FOR Them, and not a business where they feel overwhelmed and exhausted to run. It removes the “How I fit” conversation and replaces it with “What’s best for me right now” conversation… I like that more, and I want to have more of these kinds of discussions in 2023.
Turn your values into Verbs: Kindness and Compassion Additional blog articles in this series
Turn your values into Verbs: Kindness and Compassion
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