Do you have a personal filter to live by?

Ask most of the colleagues you've ever worked with, what kind of personality they think you have and would you agree or disagree with their answers? What if the questions were more specifically about your management, leadership, or team principles and how you behaviour? Personally I have known for eons that being more tactful would deliver amazing benefits to my interactions with people, both at work and personally. It has however taken the last 15 years of concerted effort to truly understand these benefits and only the last 12 months of implementing some more solid strategies to do it.

If you are still reading by now, you're thinking "what the?" The ultimate answer came from a very savvy colleague of mine and is all about creating your own personal filter. Once you have decided what your true values in life are (what you would live and die by) use them as your filter to guide the way you act and behaviour in every single circumstance everyday. Be true to your filter. It's a bit like creating your own personal religion, that only you can hold yourself accountable for.

To give an example around this, taking responsibility for my own destiny is one value I want to live by. Being a chronic victim is not a desirable trait. Therefore when I'm in a meeting and someone makes a comment or remark blaming my department for for an issue or mistake, I can chose to sulk around like a victim, complaining that no one understands and that I'm getting singled out. Or I could choose to accept the circumstance, or determine whether I can control, change or improve the circumstance.

Unfortunately like all good theory it took way, WAY, more to get it in to practice, and a lot of time now is still spent contemplating what should come out the other end of the filter. Thankfully I can refer back to my savvy colleague, who amazingly has the best answer every time - thank you. But I still live in hope that if I practice this technique enough it will eventually become part of me, an organic part of my personality. So I am now practicing to rise above my old petty ways by regularly asking myself "what else can I do to rise above my circumstances and achieve the results I desire?"

Do you have a guiding filter?