Have you ever driven a car with the front end out of alignment?
It’s an uncomfortable experience. You’re fighting the wheel the whole way. The road, the wheels, and you, are in a constant directional battle.
Trying to get someplace while misaligned is wearisome.
We hear a lot about “alignment” in the corporate setting, but often, that’s just another code word for conformity. If things aren’t going right, some kind of top-down direction has to be imposed, and all the little people need to get aligned.
Fit in. Change yourself. Adapt to the new measures of success. We’re told to adapt, even to mis-matches. We exchange alignment with someone else’s agenda, for someone else’s paycheck.
That can be pretty wearisome, too.
Perhaps, as we begin a new year, we should turn the tables and think about alignment from the opposite direction. If I am mis-matched in my present role or in my current company, perhaps it’s not all about getting myself aligned to someone else’s agenda.
Maybe it’s time for my work to be aligned to who I am.
Radical thought, right? Maybe it shouldn’t be.
I’ll be writing a lot more about this topic this year (and the related topic of businesses taking on mis-matched work and clients), but for today, give your mind and heart some space for a little re-aligned dreaming.
What would my work look like if it was MY work? What if my role was aligned to me, and not vice-versa? And do I really have to always take my marching orders from someone else, or can my starting point for my career direction eventually be…me?
