Know Your Values

How often have you thought, I mean seriously thought, about what it is you truly value in life?

Back in my corporate employment days the issue of considering and defining corporate or team values was something that came to the fore quite regularly in meetings.

A fair amount of time was spent trying to cut across individual perspectives to identify the values of the collective; values that we could all buy into and that would, in theory anyway, shape the way we went about doing our business.

Surprisingly though, it was only when I was first exposed to life coaching, at a relatively advanced stage of my life, that I was challenged to give serious consideration to my own personal hierarchy of values.

[box type=\”shadow\”]“It\’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.”

― Roy Disney[/box]

Know your values (continued)

 

Both fascinating and perplexing

I found the experience both fascinating and perplexing.

I say perplexing partly because it was such a difficult exercise and partly because I kept wondering why neither my parents, my schoolteachers, my lecturers or my supervisors at work had ever challenged me to do this before.

A simple question

My coach’s question was a simple one:

“What’s most important to you in your life?”

When I started to struggle a bit she asked the question again but with a focus on specific areas of my life like my career, my family life or my relationship with money, for example.

I wrote down about a dozen things that I thought were most important to me. My coach then asked me to prioritise these values and choose my top six.

At one point I threw up my hands, claiming they were all equally important. She just smiled and asked me to focus on any two of the values and answer the question: “Which is more important to you?”

Pairing and comparing

The next step was to take the more important of the two values,  pair it with another from my list and then answer the same question again.

By working through all possible pairs of values and applying the importance test, I was able to come up with a prioritised list of my top six values.

My coach then gave me the opportunity to ‘sleep’ on this and revert with any changes I might decide on.

Bringing the knowledge into our conscious thinking

This was an eye opening and quite exhilarating experience for me. Never before had I spent so much time and focused thought on what was truly most important to me in my life.

The point I am making here is that we all know, subconsciously, what is most important to us but very few of us ever bring this knowledge into our conscious thinking in such a way that we can use it to deliberately direct our actions and behaviours.

When you are subconsciously – but not consciously – aware of what is most important to you, you are likely to experience a lack of total clarity when it comes to how to act in certain circumstances.

Compromising our values

In a world in which we are encouraged to act and behave in accordance with what we think others would want of us, sacrificing or compromising our values becomes a surprisingly commonplace thing.

Then we are left wondering why we experience feelings of confusion, frustration, unease and anxiety.

Bringing great clarity and direction

On the other hand, engaging in the process of consciously debating and deciding what our top values are – and in what priority – has the effect of bringing great clarity and direction to our actions and behaviours.

In other words, we can start to act and behave in ways that accord with our own internal standards, rather than those of others. Not only that but we can deal, more rationally and decisively, with situations that call for a compromise of our  values.

Alignment of head and heart

I call this a joyous ‘alignment of the head with the heart’!

The process of uncovering one’s authentic values is integral to life coaching.

As individuals, it is the alignment, or lack of alignment, with our value system that dictates whether something is ‘right/good’ or ‘wrong/bad’ in our perspective of the world. Our value system thereby helps us to determine how best to act in order to remain happy and fulfilled.

Professional coaches, appreciating as they should that each individual and client is totally unique, are taught not to stand in judgement of a client’s values, no matter how they may contrast with their own.

The important thing is to bring them into the client’s conscious awareness and then help the client understand how to deliberately align their actions and behaviours with their values.

Follow my lead

If you’re like I was, having, up until now only superficially thought about what is most important to you in life – or your values – I encourage you to follow my lead.

It’s a difficult process to do on your own. Find yourself a great life coach to help you with this.

New Insights trained life coaches have a very effective step by step process that is proven to work well.

I think you’ll find the outcome both positive and profoundly liberating.

Good luck!

 

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