How Your Core Values Fuel a Successful Career
Updated: Dec 1, 2021
Your core values and how you live your life day-to-day are fueled by 3 components: oxygen, heat, and fuel. The Fire Triangle is a tool that we use to help us understand the importance of our core values. It's worth exploring how we can apply this to our everyday lives.
The fire triangle is an all-encompassing metaphor that compares our needs to create a healthy life. The three components are oxygen, fuel, and heat. In the same way, fire will not burn without these aspects; we also need each of these aspects to feel fulfilled in our lives. If one of the components is missing, the fire will not burn properly or even at all. The three components correspond to the different needs and how we must balance them in our lives.
Fuel: Your Core Values
A fire needs three things to burn: fuel, heat, and oxygen. The fuel for a fire has everything to do with the values that drive the person in question. For example, you may choose to light your fire with lighter fluid, adequate to start it but not without hazard, and will quickly burn out without the addition of more substantial fuel. Or you can build your fire slowly, ensuring a safe and robust flame that will burn consistently and without running the risk of burning you in the process.
I know, I know, I'm getting pretty symbolic here. But the facts remain, there are risks and rewards for every type of fuel in your life. The crucial and challenging part of a successful and aligned life is identifying which fuel feeds your fire in the most effective and healthy way.
Oxygen: Breathe Life into Your Career and Position Yourself for Success
The triangle is made up of three elements: heat, fuel, and oxygen. Without one of these three things, the fire will not ignite. Oxygen is what sustains fire- generating it into something hot enough to combust anything in its path.
In our careers: Our skills and talents are what sustain us. And while talents are generally considered an innate part of your being- skills are not. That is why education and curiosity are vital to maintaining a fulfilled and passion-fueled career in education. It's easy to feel like everything is constantly changing, and you can't keep up with the new ways of teaching-but it doesn't have to be that way. You don't have to absorb every course, philosophy, and system out there. But taking the time first to identify your values (fuel) makes it more evident where you need to allow for airflow and blow on the embers and when you can sit back and allow the breeze to build your career into new heights.
Heat: Ignite the Fire of Your Career with Clear Messaging and Effective Marketing
When doing some reading and research to back up this analogy, I was forming in my head about fires and career growth, I read into the fire triangle, and I kept getting frustrated that the word used wasn't "spark." It seemed like the right word for me. It was prettier. Catchier. I mean, who doesn't want to find their spark, right?
But as usual, once I let go of my expectations- I was able to find my clarity in the true meaning of heat when building a fire.
It doesn't have to be a spark.
Sometimes it is-Sometimes, we happen upon a new family by word of mouth referral, and it's instantly clear that your lives were meant to come together at this intersection, and your values align in ways known and unknown.
Or maybe it's intentionally interviewing for months with agencies, individual families, centers, schools, or another education environment until you find the one that checks all your boxes.
Or maybe it's survival mode, and you're rubbing sticks together hoping for a flame, giving it everything you've got-but feeling panicked and anxious because you're underprepared, scrounging for fuel, and wishing your heat source is enough.
I've experienced each of these situations in my career. The one thing about the education field, and especially nannying, that will always be true--Kids grow up. While I've seen it done, it's rare to find a family that needs full-time nanny care for more than 5 years. But, then, most kids head to kindergarten, and it's just not logical to pay for full-time care-when one parent can be there for emergencies without risking their job or responsibilities. So you will need to transition jobs. And that's why preparing for the moment you need to build your fire is better done before you head out into the wilderness.
Are you ready to identify your core values and the fire that jumpstarts your career to provide peace, health, and alignment with your authentic self and the life you want to live? Cause I've built the framework I WISH I would have had when I started my Education career 10 years ago. I'm passing on everything I've learned to you so you can navigate those steps without the trips and falls I endured.
Firestarter: Fuel is all about connecting with your core values, the key to building a successful career. Firestarter is an online, self-paced course designed to help you identify the core values worth living for. These are the values that will guide you through your daily life and help you build the fire that aligns your career with your goals in life.
The Pre-Sale is live now, and the price goes up after the course launches on January 1st! So take advantage of the presale today.