10 Reasons to Identify Your Values
Living your life 'in integrity' means that your words match your
actions which match your beliefs. When you are living your life
in harmony with your values, you naturally have more energy.
Clarifying what really matters to you, knowing what you stand
for, will set you free to live life to its fullest potential.
1. If you don't know who you are, you can't be true to your
self.
Sounds obvious, but many of us go through life without taking
the time to identify what truly matters to us.
2. It makes decision-making easier.
When faced with a decision, look at your choices in light of
your values. How does each choice support you in living your
values? If both support your values, which value does it
support? And which of those values is more important to you?
Makes it easy, doesn't it?
3. It helps you identify people, situations and things that
don't support those values.
Sometimes people, situations or things don't make us
comfortable. Very often, the negative emotions they evoke are
caused by a value being threatened. Without understanding that,
and without knowing which value they threaten, we use valuable
energy defending or protecting ourselves. If you have a strong
need to be true to yourself, look around. What situations evoke
those feelings? In my experience, we only have a strong need to
be true to ourselves when we're not being true to ourselves. The
rest of the time, we just are.
4. It helps you identify people, situations and things you do
want in your life.
Being clear about what your values are allows you to proactively
seek the people, situations and things that support those
values. That gives you the freedom to replace the items you
identified in Step 3. It puts you in charge of your life.
5. It gives you an incredible sense of peace.
Clarifying your values and then living your life in harmony with
those values provides you with an inner peace and tranquility
that allows you to move confidently through life.
6. It allows you to stop reacting, and start responding.
Whether we've identified our values or not, we always know when
we're not being true to ourselves. This often creates a vague
sense of uneasiness and we react defensively. When we are clear
about what our values are, we respond to such events with
clarity and we do it quickly!
7. It's a great yardstick for creating goals [and it's easier to
achieve goals that are based on values].
When a goal is in harmony with your values, the natural energy
around it provides a momentum that allows you to take the
necessary action 'without effort'.
8. It allows you to get rid of goals that aren't really yours.
Take a close look at the goals that have been around for a long
time. You may find that they're really things you feel you
'should' want. Let them go. The guilt associated with not
working on these goals is wasting energy you could be using to
achieve what you really want.
9. It allows you to be very clear about the standards you set
for yourself.
Standards are behavior that we establish for ourselves. They are
the expression of our values in every day life.
10. It allows you to be very clear about the boundaries you need
to establish for others' behavior.
Boundaries are what other people cannot do to or around you. The
behavior that is least acceptable to you is that which violates
your values. Clarity around your values allows establishing and
enforcing boundaries to be painless. You're not trying to change
people, you're just clear about the behavior that's acceptable
around you.
If you'd like an inventory in PDF format (readable by Adobe
Acrobat Reader) to help you identify your core values, please
send a blank email to at
values@touchpointcoaching.com