Your Internal Compass

We all have an Internal Compass, although our awareness of it varies from person to person and throughout life.

At LEARN, the Internal Compass is a metaphor for what matters to us, what drives us, and the resources we draw upon in everyday life. We explore the compass through three interconnected dimensions: Resources, Values, and North.

Your Resources are your strengths, talents, and best personality traits. You draw on your resources to achieve both personal and professional goals, and to have a positive impact. Knowing your talents and strengths, and being comfortable using them, is central to living a fulfilled life and serving others.

Your Values reflect what matters most to you, and they strongly influence how you choose to live, work, and lead. You are likely to be aware of some of your values. As you discover other values that are also important to you, you will understand yourself better and see why you may react the way you do in interactions with others. Insight into your values will also help you make choices that are right for you. Your values are generally quite stable. Sometimes we experience events that alter our values, but more often we discover values that have been important to us all along without being fully aware of them. A journey of self-development often includes finding more sustainable ways of expressing certain values that may previously have received too much attention at the expense of others.

Your North represents your deeper sense of direction, purpose, and the contribution you want to make. When you are aware of it, it has the potential to be a positive driving force in your life.

What drives us, and what we take guidance from, can be complex and challenging to see clearly. Sometimes we are driven by passion or ambition to accomplish something we find important. Other times we are driven by love, conviction, ideas, or emotions. We can also be driven by needs, desires, or fears. 

Discovering and articulating YOUR NORTH will help you understand yourself better and lead yourself in alignment with who you want to be. This work can also help you intentionally draw upon positive drivers to increase motivation while limiting the influence of potentially harmful drivers. As you move through life, mature, and consciously choose what you allow to drive you, you may find that your understanding of North evolves, and that you want to redefine what you call your North.

Our Internal Compass is shaped by our experiences, relationships, and the world around us, and it continues to evolve throughout life. By developing a deeper awareness of our Internal Compass, we become better equipped to navigate complexity, make conscious choices, and create space for others to do the same. We see coaching as a creative process that increases awareness of the Internal Compass. As awareness grows, so does our ability to lead ourselves, build meaningful relationships, and create impact aligned with what matters most.

The Internal Compass sits at the heart of the LEARN Coaching Model. We believe that strengthening the Internal Compass is fundamental to developing the human capabilities required to lead, collaborate, and create greater impact in an increasingly complex world.