Why am I writing about values?
Well we all know what our values are or at least think we do.
I had a value set drummed into me as a boy and during my time in the Army.
The question is are they still relevant now that I do not live and work in that environment any more?
Why are values important?
Personal values are at the essence of who we are as people. Part of the reason why we are all unique is that we each have a set of our own personal values. There are subtle nuances in how we interpret a value which means that although two people may share the same values, they will view them slightly differently.
Discovering your personal values is not simply about identifying what you are passionate about. It’s more than that. They are about what’s really important to you.
Living YOUR life
It is important to live according to our OWN values and not someone else’s. Whose values could we be living by? Well, we first discover about values from our parents. I went into the Army because I wanted to NOT because my parents wanted me to follow in my father’s footsteps. So, I was living by MY values. However, if I had a burning desire to be a racing driver and yet I had still joined the Army I would have been living by my parent’s values. The chances are I would have been very unhappy. Fortunately, I was free to choose my own career path.
Gaining focus in your life?
If you don’t take control of your life, someone else will. Knowing our personal values gives us focus. It becomes clear what’s important to YOU rather than being swayed by other people’s opinions. We need to know what is important to us in order to have a fulfilling and satisfying life.
We have an exercise for you to do which is downloadable here.
The exercise is simple but not easy as you will find out. However, it is useful to help you understand yourself better.
I did the exercise to figure out what my core values are now that I “don’t” need to live by my previous set of values.
How to do the exercise
I did some reading about how to do the exercise above and beyond the original brief.
My findings?
You need to go for values you can’t do without rather than focusing on your “SHOULD have” values. This forces you to be realistic about what you want.
You then need to prioritise your results.
Having got your list of 10, the way to reduce these to your eventual three is to ask yourself some questions.
- Take the first one on your list and compare it to the second. If you had to choose between having 1 but not 2 or 2 but not 1, which would it be?
- If 1 “wins” do the same with 1 and 3. Keep going until 1 loses, let’s say against 5
- Continue the process with 5 being the new most important. You don’t need to go back up the list as 1 has already beaten them so just keep going down the list.
- Repeat the above until you have distilled your value list.
- You do need to keep a record of the results of each “competition”. Otherwise you will know what your #1 value is yet not #2 and #3.
So what did I come up with?
My 3 distilled values are.
Enjoyment, Spontaneity and Satisfaction.
These were both surprising and not at the same time. I have always said that I want to be a professional beach bum. However, the shift in what I want most, is the surprising bit. I don’t need to be rich or important to have the three values above. Obviously, a little more money would certainly help.
The reason for conflict
When we feel really frustrated or angry about something it is often because we are experiencing an internal conflict. Recently Nicci has been very angry and frustrated that she feels unable to respond publicly to some bully because of the damage this could do to the other person’s reputation. This is causing a conflict between two of Nicci’s core values. How can she stand up to the bullying, thus being true to her core value of “courage”, while not stooping to the intimidating behaviour of the other person, which Nicci’s core value of “integrity” would find abhorrent?
Things change
“I lost the life that I knew, and I really had to rethink my future and think about my core values and the things that I love, and my passion, and that's really what helped me move forward. Also, for me just being grateful for what I had in my life versus focusing on what I was losing, that really helped as well.” Amy Purdy
As we grow older, we change. We experience new things and develop in ways that we may not have expected. These changes mean that we need to check-in occasionally with our values. A value that was very important to us five years ago may be less important now. They are always moving. Your values can also be situational eg. what’s true for you at work may not be true for you at home.
Living life with an out-dated set of values causes conflict and unhappiness. We may not have realised things have changed so we continue to live the way we have always done; however, our subconscious mind KNOWS that our values have changed.
I hope this will help you Create A New, Beautiful And Courageous Existence.
Practice makes perfect
It’s all well and good writing about things in theory: however, we need to start applying what we learn. Have a go at the exercise and see if your values are what you think they are. To download the exercise please click here.
To help you keep track of all your work for the daily activities mentioned, we have created a Monthly Diary for you to record your progress. To download your copy of “My February Canbace Diary” please click here.
Be kind to yourself …
In CANBACE friendship!
If anything I have written resonates I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I appreciate that this can be a difficult subject to speak openly about. If you don’t want me to publish your comment on the website, please let me know. I will keep your words private.
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