How Values Can Help You Get Your Heart's Desire!

I am so excited to write about this topic! Many of my life coaching clients come to me to get clarity on how to accomplish what they need to during the day. Yeah- we will need to talk about structuring the day, chunking work, minimizing distractions, etc. But, we also need to "reverse engineer" this and look at the daily goals, weekly goals, monthly goals, and yearly goals. Which will require looking at the client's vision for their life, which requires identifying VALUES!

You might be thinking, what??? Who actually does this? Aren't values obvious? Be a good person and stuff like that. But, I am telling you, if you stick with me during this post and go through the process of identifying your values, it will help you make decisions and prioritize your time.

value: a person's principles or standards of behavior; one's judgment of what is important in life.

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May I introduce.....Brene Brown?

If you know me, you know that I love Brene Brown. In her book, Dare to Lead (https://brenebrown.com/book/dare-to-lead/) she talks about values as what leads us to do uncomfortable and daring things. When we start to "chicken out" because we realize that we are no longer in our comfort zone; this is when we really needs to hone in on our values to remind us why this is important and needs to be done. Once we identify our values, it is important that we act in accordance of them; to be clear on what we believe and what we hold as important.

I love that Brene goes on to clarify that we have one set of values. In other words, we do not need "work" values and "personal" values. This makes total sense to me. We are called to live in alignment with what we hold as most important regardless of our setting/situation (home or work).

Are you ready? It's time to identify YOUR values!

Here is the hard part. I am going to share a list of values from Brown's book. You must pick TWO that you hold most important (or you may add your own). This will seem like an impossible task. My suggestion is that you first put a "check" by every one that "speaks to" you. Then go through those and pick your favorite 8-10 and then keep eliminating until you are down to two.

accountability

achievement

adaptability

adventure

altruism

ambition

authenticity

balance

beauty

being the best

belonging

career

caring

collaboration

commitment

community

compassion

competence

confidence

connection

contentment

contribution

cooperation

courage

creativity

curiosity

dignity

diversity

environment

efficiency

equality

ethics

excellence

fairness

faith

family

financial stability

forgiveness

freedom

friendship

fun

future generations

generosity

giving back

grace

gratitude

growth

harmony

health

home

honesty

hope

humility

humor

inclusion

independence

initiative

integrity

intuition

job security

joy

justice

kindness

knowledge

leadership

learning

legacy

leisure

love

loyalty

making a difference

mature

openness

optimism

order

parenting

patience

patriotism

peace

perseverance

personal fulfillment

power

pride

recognition

reliability

resourcefulness

respect

responsibility

risk taking

safety

security

self-discipline

self-expression

self-respect

serenity

service

simplicity

spirituality

sportsmanships

stewardship

success

teamwork

thrift

time

tradition

travel

trust

truth

understanding

uniqueness

usefulness

vision

vulnerability

wealth

well-being

wholeheartedness

wisdom

(add your own)

I know you hated to only choose two because that is how I felt! However, I bet that if you look back at the values that didn't "make the cut", you will find a lot of them relate to your top two. For example, my top values are:

Connection

Growth

Some of my other values include:

• belonging

• faith

• family

• health

• honesty

• knowledge

• learning

• love

• peace

• trust

• vulnerability

It's easy to see how all of these relate to connection and growth.

Let's make it real! What can you do to LIVE in your values?

Values aren't just some fluffy words. They should really be guiding principles in our lives. we have to translate our values from "ideals" to "behaviors" or better yet--> actions! So, the next thing you need to do is:

1. Identify 3-4 behaviors that support your vales

2. identify 3-4 behaviors that you find yourself tempted to do although they are contrary to your values.

Here are my examples:

Connection:

Behaviors that support this value:

1. Really listen to people and summarize what I heard

2. Be genuinely interested in others

3. Make time for friendships

4. Make time for fun with the kids

Tempting behaviors that are outside of my value:

1. Withdrawing when I am upset (This one is worth talking about for a moment. Conflict. Conflict is a fantastic example of when we should really be returning to our values. Because my values are connection and growth, I should try to solve my conflicts in those ways. So for me, I should really try to understand the other person's perspective (connection) and believe that it is true for them. I should look at what part I played and how I can do better in the future (growth). Unfortunately, my go to when I am upset is withdrawal and this is NOT living in my values.)

2. Isolating because it is easier

3. Prioritizing almost everything else over fun with friends and family (I know....what is wrong with me??)

Growth

Behaviors that support this value:

1. Learning more about the things that interest me

2. Journal

3. Seek feedback (Oh boy do I avoid this one......)

4. Try new things

Tempting behaviors that are outside of my value:

1. Staying at my full-time job because it is a known entity and is safe.

2. Avoiding investing in growth opportunities because I don't believe in myself (i.e. don't believe that I will ever do more than I am currently doing. Ouch- that was hard to admit)

3. Living in autopilot instead of reflecting and improving.

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If you can't tell, I love this focus on values. And I have loved writing this blog post today because it has reawakened me to my own values. When I look at my own values I realize that I am pretty good at valuing growth opportunities in my life- however, I don't always capitalize on the growth opportunities during the really tough moments. And I want to get better at that. Now connection is another story. Without a doubt, it is important to me. I truly believe life is about the relationships. However, I do not think my calendar reflects that and I am definitely going to be cognizant of making that change.

Our values really shouldn't change. I first did this exercise a couple of years ago and then repeated it when I wrote this blog post. Yep, still the same: connection and growth! When we are making decisions, it really helps to return to our values and often this brings clarity. When we are not living in our values is when "issues" begin to arrive and life gets "messy". And when we lost sight of our values, we may find that we are reacting to what is going on around us instead of living life intentionally. I hate that feeling.

Values give us clarity. Once we know our values, we can come up with our vision for different areas of our life, write goals and smash productivity. If you would like some help with your values, vision or goals, I invite you to book a complimentary consult.

So...what are your values. Share them in the comments! Do you believe that focusing on them will bring you your heart's desire?