HOW TO MAKE YOUR VALUES WORK FOR YOU

I spend a lot of time talking about core values in the workshops I run, and during the speeches I give.  That’s because when my clients get clear about their core values, they also have a better sense of their value.  This clarity also enhances their self-esteem and self-worth.  In many instances, it makes erecting and maintaining effective boundaries much easier as well.  Most importantly, getting clear about their core values and aligning them with everything they do, makes their lives much less challenging.

Who you are is like a bus, and your core values are the bus-driver.  Get very clear about your core values, and they will take you directly to where you want to go. There’s no meandering through life, wondering where you are and how you got there.  When you know your core values, you should align them with everything from how you spend your money to the partner you choose to spend your life with and everything in-between such as jobs, careers, decisions, relationships, and situations you enter.  In the absence of that clarity and alignment, you run the risk of climbing the proverbial ladder of success to the top, personally and/or professionally, only to discover you’ve propped it up against the wrong wall.  I‘ve had clients who have done this repeatedly until we work on getting them very clear about exactly what their core values are and how to use them.

When You Know Your Values, You Know Your Value

My client Gary had trouble with this.  He took a job offering him, excellent benefits, including an impressive title, a fabulous office (I saw the photos), and a generous salary.  It didn’t take long for him to discover that his employer’s core values were totally out of alignment with his.  A little fact he overlooked because he was so excited about the benefits they offered him.  Gary was wearing “Golden Handcuffs,” so attached to the benefits he couldn’t let go even though he hated going to work every day.

After we worked on clarifying his core values, I asked him what his employer’s mission statement said.  “I never looked at it.  It’s all just marketing hype,” he answered.  I asked him to take a long hard look at his company’s mission statement, values statement, and any other “marketing hype” he could find on their website and in their promotional literature for our next session.

When we talked the following week, he said that nothing he saw addressed any of the values he’d clarified for himself as a result of our coaching sessions.  “But that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have had those values,” he said, still skeptical about using this information as a barometer to determine if a prospective employer has similar values to his.  And he was right.  “That’s when you have to begin crafting very definitive questions that will ferret out that information during your job interviews,” I explained.  Gary is now looking for a different job, but this time he’s crystal clear about what he is looking for beyond the benefits.

Another Practical Application

I advise parents of college-age students to do the same values-clarifying exercises we do in my workshops, with their children. Then I suggest they make sure the schools they are considering have values that are in alignment with them.

Examining the mission and values statements can tell you a lot about the priorities of an institution and what they deem most important in a few sentences.  If these statements don’t match your child’s core values exactly, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a good fit.  However, if their top 3 to 5 core values aren’t in either the mission or values statement, it’s an invitation to dig a little deeper.  Talk to other students, college advisors, and other parents who may be able to answer your questions before handing over your children’s education and your hard-earned money to that institution.

We all have core values, but until we’re very clear about what they are, then align them with everything we say and do, we still have work to do in mastering the art of authentic living.

Do you need a little help defining your core values and/or aligning them with your day to day life?  Click here to schedule your FREE EXPLORATORY SESSION.  I promise there will be no hard sell.  I have no personal attachment to the outcome of our conversation beyond your feeling better for our having had it.  For more information about living authentically, click here to get your FREE copy of my “GUIDE TO AUTHENTIC LIVING: Ten Things People Who Live Authentically Know And Do…And So Can You.“