Growth & Messaging
For many people, the start of the New Year is an opportunity to think about what they want to achieve in their lives, personally and professionally. Helping people to grow personally and professionally through a focus on messaging is one goal/objective of Healthy Messages™. Thus, it seemed fitting to highlight areas of growth in this month’s writing. In particular, Healthy Messages™ is interested in the qualities/attributes that people possess and how they are able to incorporate them in the work that they do, as well as how much of the work that they do is a reflection of their values, mission or purpose, aspirations or goals, and overall messaging. This doesn’t just apply to paid employment or one’s career.
For many, their job is exactly aligned with their interests, skills, and life goals. For many others, they may be working to support themselves and their families while also pursuing what they feel is their true calling or passion, including investing time in a part-time business and/or volunteering for a particular cause. With this in mind, consider these areas of personal and professional growth and related questions:
Personal identity - what are your qualities, values, and/or interests?
Purpose/mission and/or goals - what would you like to do, support, or achieve?
Place of action - where will you utilize your qualities, pursue your interests, advocate for values, fulfill your mission or purpose, and/or achieve your goals, whether that’s at home, your place of employment, or local community, to name a few?
Your message - what do you want to convey through your words and actions in support of your values, purpose/mission, or goals and as a result of them? In other words, what’s the heart of the matter? Oftentimes we underestimate the power of communication (written, spoken, and lived out) in not only representing ourselves, organizations, or businesses, but in sharing the heart or importance of what we do, as well as in facilitating progress and clarifying our direction and next steps.
Considering areas of personal and professional growth through a focus on messaging, take some time to review the services that Healthy Messages™ offers:
Professional and Organizational Messaging Self-Service: Evaluate areas for growth and change and clarify professional and organizational messaging
Professional Development and Training: One on one or group support to navigate individual challenges around communication
Direct Communication Support: Assistance with producing content/communication
Strategic Consulting: Evaluating gaps/discrepancies between messaging and outcomes
Whole Leader Group™ - Where professionals can network, share ideas, & craft, implement, and improve healthy messages
How do you want to grow personally and professionally? What do you want to do or achieve? What messages do you want to convey? In this New Year Healthy Messages™ will be continuing to share content monthly while shifting priorities to work on more research and writing, in addition to providing supports around the services previously noted.
I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to share a comment or reach out if you’d like to connect, have questions, or are interested in partnering.
Healthy Messages™ helps professionals, leaders, and business owners in human services improve, craft, and implement communication within and across systems.
Learn more about Healthy Messages™ mission, vision, and outcomes.
Sharing Intentionally
For individuals in service or people-facing roles, sharing information is an integral part of their work with others. Receiving information is of course relevant for understanding what clients want and/or need but in large part it’s the information that they have to share that prompts a need for their help. Similarly, for individuals receiving services or supports, it is natural to both receive and share information but they are largely motivated to seek out services based on their need for some form of assistance.
Being intentional in sharing information might come easier for professionals or business owners, as well as clients of their services, because there is a specific purpose to achieve. For instance, a financial services professional meeting with a client shares information that pertains to better understanding, growing, and/or protecting money as it relates to that client's goal of investing money for an early retirement by age 60. Or a violin instructor working with a student shares information on how to read and play music in support of that client’s desire to play in their city’s orchestra the following fall. In these examples and other services you can probably think of we see an exchange of specific information with the intention of meeting a specific need.
For all businesses, whether private or for-profit, grant funded, large, or small, it’s important to stay focused on the purpose, the goals that clients want to achieve, and how this relates to the organization’s desired outcomes. Challenges can arise when communication, whether verbal, written, or behavioral, don’t align, resulting in unclear and disjointed inputs and outputs, as well as wasted, misused, even abused resources.
Applying intentionality in sharing can be beneficial organizationally, professionally, and personally. At times though, it can be more difficult to discern intentionality on a personal level. Even within a professional context there is always the possibility for our individual beliefs, values, and passions to motivate us. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing, especially if what motivates us lines up with our organization’s mission, vision, goals, services, and outcomes. However, there may be instances when they don’t because they are inconsistent or contrary to them. Sadly, these inconsistencies are sometimes inappropriate in that they include negative, hurtful, or harmful reactions towards others due to personal challenges that the professional is experiencing. Or it could just be a mismatch in intentions between the professional providing services and the client seeking to access them. Thus, it is important for both parties to be clear and on the same page. Sometimes the work that we do involves uncertainty and depends on the judgment of the professional, which can include some risk, thus practicing discretion or sensitivity to others, as well as one’s environment or context, is crucial. Outside of professional contexts, the same can be applied in our personal lives. We may be motivated by our beliefs, values, and passions to provide support to others, whether friends, family, or strangers. Just the same, we are most effective in relationships with others when we are understanding of and able to effectively meet the needs of others consistently and appropriately.
Personally, professionally, and organizationally, we have an opportunity to share intentionally in the lives of others. What strengths do you possess in sharing intentionally or on purpose with the people in your life? How would you like to grow or improve in this area?
Feel free to share your thoughts on this writing in the comments or reach out if you’d like to connect, have questions, or are interested in partnering.
Healthy Messages™ helps professionals, leaders, and business owners in service/people-facing roles craft, implement, and improve healthy messages, effectively communicating messages in words, actions, and ideas in one’s life/work, writing, and within and across systems (whole and holistic messaging).
Learn more about Healthy Messages™ mission, vision, and outcomes.