Photo of a fortune cookie fortune.

Many months ago, I sat down and created my Big Vision for my business as well as developing my business (and personal) Values. As women, we often don’t think about our successes or even equate what we do every day as “success”. So, I’m going to sum up my six month journey with this article, sit with it a while and hopefully inspire some of you to celebrate your successes too.*

Walking the talk – Being my Values

My Big Vision is to see gender equality and pay parity in the sectors I’ve worked in – public sector and the creative/digital industries.

My 10 Business (and personal as business is personal to me!) Values are:

  1. Honesty
  2. Intuition
  3. Joy
  4. Being heard/listening to others
  5. Learning
  6. Empowering others
  7. Agility
  8. Inclusivity (yes, I know it’s “not a word” but it resonated more with me than “inclusion”)
  9. Communication/connection
  10. Investigation/curiosity

Holding this Vision and these Values every day in my business is creating more connections than I ever thought of back in January. How do I hold them every day? I’ve gone old school with an index card! Every time I open my laptop, an index card is sitting in front of me, on the keyboard. I wrote my 10 Values on this card and I keep it next to me as I’m working – that visual reminder of what I value.

Back in January, I also thought through my business purpose, with the help of The Happy Startup School‘s workbook:

  • What needs am I trying to address? Helping women move up in their careers; increasing diversity in management and at conferences; creating diversity that’s sustainable in companies and organisations.
  • How do I want to positively impact people’s lives? I want women to feel confident and supportive of each other in work.
  • My business exists to: see gender equality become a reality now, not later. enable women to have an equitable seat at the table.

As a coach, I often talk about “holding the space”. In coaching, it’s about holding the space for my client, giving them the thinking space to work through problems or issues, challenging them on occasion, helping them to get out of the weeds and see their own bigger picture. For my business so therefore for me (I’ll repeat this, business is personal!), my Vision, Values and Purpose are holding my space for me and helping me create a working life I am immensely proud of.

Where have my Vision and Values taken me so far this year?

  • I’ve gained some fantastic coaching clients. Just incredible women, incredible.
  • I’ve signed up and am now part of the Global Team Coaching Institute’s Gateway programme, have met some amazing coaches through their online practical training and am looking forward to gaining my Certification in September. This Certification, for me, recognises the experience and knowledge I already have, in coaching women team leaders.
  • At the start of UK lockdown, I pivoted my face-to-face Scaredycat Workshop into an online version. I loved running the first online workshop and am now waiting for Zoom to figure out how to hear all voices at once on a video call (note to Zoom, get on this please! It’ll help out voice coaches, choirs, bands, orchestras, all of us!)
  • I’ve sat in on a UN Women webinar on Covid-19, inequalities and the prospects for structural transformation; and just been inspired by the incredible women experts, all doing amazing things.
  • I’ve become a member of Brighton and Hove’s Diversity Working Group, aiming to make positive change and build more inclusive workplaces.
  • I’ve started my own podcast! I’ve always been interested in other people’s stories and, a few years ago, I was going to create a photography project that focused on Gen X women in the UK and their lives. That project didn’t get further than the planning stage so I’m so happy that my innovative brain (as of the other week, also known as my “f**k it, just do it and see what happens” brain) turned that idea into a fully-fledged podcast. It’s not polished or a slick marketing product as I’m not and I don’t want my business to be that either! Gen X Voices has had some great reactions from other women and I’m only at first episode stage. So many interesting Gen X women out there that I want to talk to!
  • I’m now part of The Gender Equality Collective. I only found out about them recently and everything about their Purpose, Vision and Values completely connected with me. I’m now in their Business section with a snazzy new headshot, taken in these Covid-19 times by me.

So, I’m going to post this article now and, as I said, sit with it for myself for now and recognise just how much my values and vision still resonate with me, personally and in my business.

Has this article inspired you to create your own Success List? Do it! And comment below with the link to your Success List.

*Wow, did this turn into a positive, success article! The absolute disclaimer to this article is that we are in a global pandemic and yes, I’ve had some lows over the past six months. I’ll be honest though, what has mostly kept me going with developing my business is to be kind to myself, accept and appreciate the bad days and keep my space held with my ten values.