Values
plural noun ˈvæl·juz the principles that help you to decide what is right and wrong, and how to act in various situations. Cambridge Dictionary
Values represent what matters to us in life. They drive our choices, our decisions and influence what actions we take, or don’t take. They direct us at an unconscious level and influence our gut feel about certain situations, friendships, relationships, or work environments.
Values are pre-programmed at the early stages of our development, instilled through reward and pleasure initially by our parents or guardian and later through our friends, relationships, teachers, culture, and society.
They are deeply ingrained in us and only likely to change due to significant emotional events that occur as we grow and move through life. Because of this it is usually better to work with who we are, rather than who we think we should be.
Values both embody the things that we want most, as well as the things that we fear the most and therefore can create a push-pull dynamic. One of our driving move-towards values could be achievement for example, whilst rejection could be one that we are trying to avoid (move-away). If not identified, these two can cause conflicts and obstacles in the quest towards our goals. Our move-away values are often more powerful than our move-towards values. Studies show 75% of people are more motivated by what they don’t want, in this case rejection, instead of by what they want, achievement and can sabotage our success. Our brains are wired to go towards comfort and ease rather than taking risks to create our ideal future.
Five benefits of identifying our values
1. Living authentically and with purpose
Knowing our core values allows us to live intentionally and be the most authentic version of ourselves in all aspects of life. Our values will keep us on track and will help us get back in touch with who we are in between all the chaos and outside noise.
2. Confident decision making
Core values embody what we treasure most in life. They build guiding principles that help us act as the person we want to be at our core e.g. if we value independence, we might decide to turn down a well-paid yet micromanaged position.
3. Reduced self-sabotage
Knowing our values and being conscious of the ones that could cause tension will allow us to work with strategies that promote progress towards what we want without being held back by comfort or fears.
4. Increased satisfaction
Understanding and living by our values will lead us to people, places, opportunities that will be more meaningful and satisfying to us.
5. Setting the right goals
Knowing our values ensures that the goals we set and our behaviours towards them are compatible with what we desire and what will fulfil us.
The importance of setting goals with values in mind
If our goals don’t align with our values, we risk spending a lot of time working towards paths that others have chosen for us and that will only result in mediocre satisfaction. Goals that are not aligned with our model of the world will make it harder for us to stay motivated or stick to new habits in the process. We might even start procrastinating and consequently develop self-doubt.
When we build our life and goals around core values, we ensure that our subconscious supports our desires and therefore create a natural motivation to achieve them.
How to identify core values and align them with your goals
1. Examine your priorities
Examine how you spend your time, and this should give you a starting point for identifying your core values. You might find it helpful to keep a journal of all the activities you pursue over the coming weeks and write down how much you enjoyed each one and why. E.g. You might discover that you spent a lot of overtime at work in the past week. This could be because you are passionate about your job, which could suggest that career or ambition are some of your core values. Alternatively, you could have spent overtime due to a deadline but were really craving going for a run instead, which could mean fitness or health are amongst your values. Equally you might have attended a pottery class. Some people might go for the creativity, others might go for the community. Every experience is unique to you.
2. Identify your top 10 values ranked in hierarchical order
Select the 10 values you identify the most with using the below list of common move-towards values. Feel free to add more key words if you need to. At this stage it is important to be completely honest and not pick words that sound good or you would like to embrace, rather identify the ones that are already truly present within you. E.g. Security might sound boring to some, but having an insight of your true values will allow you to work with them.
Arrange them in order of importance, you may also add them in groups.
Writing them down will be the first step to living them. Keep your list in a place that allows you to review your values on a regular basis.
Give each a score from 1-10, indicating the extent to which you are honouring these in your life.
Once you have identified your top 10, write down your definition of what each value means to you. It’s important to understand that even if some people select the same key words, they might have completely different interpretations and meanings attached to them.
Now that you have them, you can start looking at the different areas in your life and see whether they align with your value points or set actions and goals with them in mind.
A professional performance coach can support you in the process of identifying your values, raise your self-awareness, set personal goals and work with strategies that help you overcome self-sabotage to create quicker progress.
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