Companies spend time, energy and money in branding efforts to identify their company values. With these values known, they create their mission statement and culture to support their company goals. Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has said, “One of the really interesting things I found from the research is that it actually doesn’t matter what your values are, what matters is that you have them and that you align the organization around them. And the power actually comes from the alignment, not from the actual values.” The same is true for life.
Knowing our personal core values is the first step towards living a life of fulfillment. They are our fundamental beliefs, what’s most important and when clear, become our GPS system for life.
Benefits of identifying your personal core values:
1. Gain clarity.
If there is one topic that clients struggle with most it’s finding their purpose, or their WHY. Values are like flashlights. When you know your core values, they shine light on things you may not have noticed before. Sometimes it brings clarity to what’s been in front of you all along. If one of your values is Service, you might look more for positions where you directly get to serve people. When combined with other values such as Compassion, it may direct you towards non profit when you wouldn’t have considered that before.
2. Better decision making.
When you know your core values, it becomes easier to make the right decision in any given situation. For example, my overarching value is freedom. I thrive when I choose what, when, how and with whom for everything I do. If I am offered a job that has specific time requirements and rigid processes to follow, that’s going to take my freedom away. I can actually feel my chest tighten just thinking about it. There were times if the money was right, I would consider it anyway. What I know now is to be happy, I must stay aligned with my value of freedom. The answer now is an easy “No”.
3. Reduce stress.
This is a big one! When I am feeling stress, I reflect on my values and my current situation. The stress is generally a result of me being out of alignment on one or more values. A few of my top core values are Freedom, Commitment and, Authenticity. Let’s take the value of Commitment for example. When I make a commitment to someone, it might as well be signed in blood. There have been times I’ve unintentionally made commitments that conflict. On one hand I commit to teach a weekly class for 6 weeks and on the other, I commit to spend time helping my son on a school project. At 3:30 I’m conflicted with preparing for the class or helping Noah. Knowing how strongly I value commitment, it reminds me to be sure it’s a commitment I can fulfill without taking away from something else. Keeping values in alignment reduces stress.
4. Know when you are on the right path.
We each have our own unique set of values. When we are in alignment everything seems to click, we know we are on the right path towards our goals. We feel good and progress is obvious. When we feel stress, anxiety, complacency or boredom, all we have to do is check in with our core values, identify what’s out of alignment and choose to get back on track. Our values create a very accurate GPS for us to follow.
If you would like to identify your core values, call me at 602-228-1019 or contact me here to discuss how I can help you live a brilliant life aligned with your top values.