>>>The value of know your values…
Hi there,
Do you know your values? Could you confidently articulate them? Are you aware of the impact of your values on your life, professionally and personally? If yes to all of the above, great! Move right along, talk amongst yourselves, off you trot!
If not there is absolutely no judgement because the vast majority of us don’t have the unwavering self-awareness that allows for a complete understanding of who we are and what we stand for, aka our values.
I love talking about values with my fabulous clients. They’re a way to connect all the intangibles in life and in business and they’re a way to bring visions to life. However, a clear understanding of and knowing our values comes from extensive self-reflection and self-awareness.
In the general busyness of day to day life we can let self-awareness practices slide to the bottom of the priority list, which means our ability to deeply know and articulate our values can also slide. Self-awareness is, after all, a muscle like any other, and as one of the fitness icons from the 80s used to say, ‘move it or lose it!’ While it’s easy to lose sight of our values, it’s also relatively easy to bring them back to the fore.
But why? What’s the value in knowing our values?
Put simply, values are our internal GPS. They’re a way to navigate through our personal and professional lives, a guiding framework. They are idealistic (and realistic!) and aspirational guideposts to determining our actions. They’re also specific to you - while superficially we all might rattle off the values of kindness, discipline and empathy, dig a little deeper to see what lights you up more. Is it creativity? Is it balance? Is it growth?
Some of my clients value boldness, wisdom, and optimism, while others list intelligence, connection and harmony as their values. I don’t always personally connect with my clients’ individual values but I love how meaningful they are to my clients and how they drive their momentum and their goals.
In the context of business, value alignment is one of the most powerful ways to achieve goals. They articulate and cement our motivation of specific goals and paths to follow. If you’re feeling a bit ‘blah’ about a challenge you’ve set for your business, it could be because the values you align to that goal aren’t actually yours, or it’s aligned to a value that you find ‘meh.’
Without conscious awareness of our values, we risk relying on gut. While I never discount intuition as a valuable tool for all of us, gut feel can sometimes be off in that it’s based on false evidence and the stories we tell ourselves that might not necessarily be true. For example, an opportunity lands at your feet to speak to a group of women in technology. Your initial reactions may be excitement and gratitude. ‘They want me to speak to them? They see value in my message? Awesome!’ Then that old foe, imposter syndrome sneaks in and whispers in your ear. ‘They’re women in tech, smart cookies, for sure. What could you possibly say that won’t bore their pants off?’ With value awareness you can lean into your values of connection and growth and learning and embrace the opportunity, putting imposter syndrome firmly back in its box.
OK, so you’re convinced in the value of clarifying your values. What next?
A huge part of my work with women in business is identifying their values. When we’re clear on who we are, we are better placed to think like a project manager to successfully and sustainably grow our business.
A first step in uncovering values is a bit left of centre - I often ask clients to think about what absolutely grinds their gears, that sucks all the joy out of doing what they (should!) love. What’s getting in the way of achieving something? What yanks you out of flow? What’s making the process feel difficult? Sometimes, the block is actually a misalignment or a challenge to our values. For example, an artist may see the processes and systems that allow their businesses to actually make money as being the antithesis of creativity.
On the flipside - reflect on your achievements to date. What lights you up about what you do? What are your goals for the future that you simply cannot wait to achieve? What are the values you can link to this?
I sometimes ask my clients to list the attributes of people they admire and respect - this can be illuminating in terms of values. The obvious next step here is thinking about how you yourself would like to be described by someone who admires and respects you.
Another way to uncover your values is to simply assess a list of values. I have a methodology that I use with my clients but there are many lists of values publicly available. Circle the values that speak to you, strike out the values that are meaningless to you. Now, narrow that list down to ten. Write them out on a new piece of paper and think deeply and reflectively on each. Which resonate more than others? Why? Narrow them down to five. Why these five?
Labelling and identifying your values is one thing - bringing them into the here and now of everyday life is quite another. How can these become lived behaviour? What are the actions that can demonstrate this value? I have a number of tricks in my toolkit to do exactly that.
Some of my clients who love journalling add value reflection to their practice. Another who is quite visual turned her five values and their accompanying actions into an infographic which she printed and laminated. It sits on the wall beside her monitor so her values are literally front and centre as she goes about her work day.
Bottom line, the women I work with make a commitment to be highly aware of their values and bring them to life each day through the way they live, the decisions they make. Their values are what gets them out of bed each day, they’re what motivate them to keep pushing when things feel hard. They’re a way of grounding self-motivation and self-responsibility and most important of all? They remove that terrible feeling that comes with working in misalignment of our values.
How well do you know your values? It’s something we could explore in my discovery session - just reach out!
To your success…
How well do you know your values? It’s something we could explore in a Discovery Session.
CLICK on the button below to book in a session with me. Or, contact me if there is not a suitable timeslot.