If You Were the CEO of Your Life, Would You Renew Your Current Strategy?

We expect good CEOs to regularly step back from the day-to-day and ask difficult questions.

Where are we going?

What’s working?

What isn’t?

Where are we investing our resources?

What are we tolerating?

What needs to change?

And perhaps most importantly:

Are the decisions we’re making today creating the future we actually want?

It occurred to me recently that many of us spend our careers asking questions like these about organizations.

But how often do we ask them about our own lives?

Imagine You’re the CEO

Imagine for a moment that your life is an organization and you’re the CEO.

Your time is your capital.

Your energy is one of your most valuable resources.

Your relationships are part of your culture.

Your habits become your operating system.

Your standards determine what you’re willing to accept.

Your goals establish direction.

And your daily decisions?

They’re your strategy in action.

If you looked at your life through that lens, what would you see?

Would you keep investing where you’re investing?

Would you continue pursuing the same goals?

Would you spend your time the same way?

Would you tolerate the same things?

Would you keep saying yes to the same commitments?

Would you renew your current strategy?

Or would you change something?

Sometimes We Stop Making the Decision

Most of us don't intentionally hand over responsibility for our lives.

It happens much more quietly than that.

We make a decision.

Then we live with it.

Then we get good at living with it.

Eventually, we may stop remembering that it was ever a decision at all.

The career we chose becomes my career.

The role becomes what I do.

The lifestyle becomes how we live.

The responsibilities become what everyone needs from me.

The definition of success becomes what I'm supposed to want.

And before long, we're no longer deciding.

We're continuing.

There's nothing inherently wrong with continuing.

Sometimes a thoughtful review of your life leads to a wonderful conclusion:

I'd choose this again.

That's powerful.

But sometimes the answer is different.

This made sense five years ago. I'm not sure it does anymore.

That deserves our attention too.

Your Calendar Is a Capital Allocation Statement

If a CEO told you that innovation was the company's number-one priority but invested nothing in innovation, you'd probably question the strategy.

We do versions of this in our own lives all the time.

We say health matters, but continually put it last.

We say relationships matter, but give them whatever energy remains.

We say we want to write the book, start the business, change careers, learn something new or pursue the dream, but somehow those things never make it onto the calendar.

We say we want peace but repeatedly choose commitments that create chaos.

We say something matters.

Then we fund something else.

Maybe one of the simplest ways to understand what we're currently prioritizing is to look at where our resources are actually going.

Not just money.

Time. Energy. Attention.

Your calendar may tell you more about your current strategy than your goals do.

What Are You Tolerating?

Good leaders also pay attention to standards.

What are we willing to accept?

Where have we lowered the bar?

What behavior are we reinforcing simply because we've allowed it to continue?

That's an interesting question personally, too.

Maybe you're tolerating a habit you know isn't serving you.

Maybe you're allowing fear to make decisions.

Maybe you've been postponing a conversation.

Maybe you've become comfortable with something you once promised yourself you'd change.

Or maybe the standard isn't about doing more at all.

Maybe your next standard is getting enough sleep.

Being fully present with the people you love.

Protecting your time.

Saying no.

Having more fun.

Standards aren't simply about achievement.

They're about deciding what you're willing and no longer willing to normalize.

And Then There's the Future

Perhaps the CEO's greatest responsibility isn't managing today.

It's protecting the future.

And I think the same is true for us.

There's a question I come back to again and again:

Who am I becoming as a result of the way I'm currently living?

Not:

What am I accomplishing?

Not:

How successful do I look?

Not even:

Am I doing everything right?

But:

Who is all of this turning me into?

Because every calendar, commitment, habit, environment, relationship and repeated decision is doing more than creating results.

It's shaping us.

And that's worth noticing.

Hold a Personal Board Meeting

Maybe once a month, we should all schedule a meeting that never appears on most corporate calendars:

Twenty quiet minutes.

No presentation required.

Just five questions:

RESULTS

What's working exceptionally well in my life right now?

ALIGNMENT

What am I continuing that I might not choose again today?

RESOURCES

Where are my time, energy and attention actually going?

STANDARDS

What am I tolerating that I no longer want to normalize?

FUTURE

Who am I becoming as a result of the way I'm currently living?

And then one final question:

What is one decision I want to make differently?

Not ten.

One.

You Don't Control the Market

Of course, being the CEO of your life doesn't mean you control everything.

CEOs don't control markets, competitors, economic conditions or unexpected events.

And we certainly don't control everything that happens to us.

But we can decide how we respond.

We can decide where we invest.

We can reconsider something that no longer fits.

We can change a standard.

We can make a different choice.

We can change our minds.

We can choose again.

Maybe that's what personal authorship really looks like.

Not controlling every chapter.

Remaining an active participant in writing it.

So perhaps the question for this week isn't:

What should I accomplish next?

Maybe it's:

If I were the CEO of my life, what is the one decision I would make differently right now?

And then—

make it.

Stay awake to who you're becoming!

— Heidi | Unforgettable Results™