Defining your values
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“Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.” – Ghandi
Photo by Lina Trochez on Unsplash
My last blog post was about writing a “performance obituary”. I know it sounds morbid, but the exercise is to write your obituary from the viewpoint of someone else. Define how you want to be remembered, especially in regards to a certain role you play in your life, like parent, sibling, partner, entrepreneur, employee, artist… any defined role. You can write a separate and unique obituary for each role. Yes, imagination is required, but by doing this, you can extract what values matter most to you in each defined role.
To see my performance obituary as a business owner, click here.
Mining your values
I was able to mine these values from the performance obituary I wrote about being a business owner, and how I would want myself and my business to be remembered:
- Generosity
- Wisdom
- Energetic
- Prolific
- Powerful
- Visionary
- Inspiring
- Higher good
- Compassion
- Humor
All these words made an appearance for a reason. They came from my creative brain, but hold deeper meaning in my subconscious.
Defining your values
The next step in this exercise is to define your values, as they mean to you. You can do this by creating value statements, that can be started a few different ways:
- I value ______ because…
- I am ______ because…
For example:
- I am generous because I have something to share that will truly change people’s lives for the better.
- I value higher good, because living in service takes me out of my small ego, and thrusts me into the space of benefiting all things.
Take the time to write a statement for each value you identified.
Now Live Them
Now comes the harder part, remembering to live through your values. To make this easier, you can just choose 2 or 3 to start with. Make sure to write them out and put them somewhere you’ll see them daily. You can repeat them as a mantra when you start to get stressed or overwhelmed, or are having a hard time starting a project.
This exercise is all about living consciously, mindfully, deliberately, and that takes practice. That’s why visual reminders can help, until you’ve actually created the habit of living through your values.
Work with me
Would you like to get clear on your values?
Book a complimentary coaching session with me and we can discover it together.
