Discovering your values

by Andrew Bryant

Values provide the energetic driving force behind all our decisions and actions. They are the rules we have for ourselves. If you are out of sync with your values, you will create a life of disharmony, conflict and chaos.

Unconsciously we rank our values in order of importance to us, and we satisfy our values according to our ranking. For example if power is the most important value to us, we will unconsciously strive to satisfy our need for power before any other value. Values change through life and when you become conscious of them you can align them.

Here is a simple exercise to help you identify and rank your own values.

 

Step 1

Values can depend on context, work or personal life. It is therefore important to do this exercise for both contexts and check for conflicts.

Focus on what’s important to you in either your work or personal life. Relax and allow your mind to free flow. Write down all the words that pop into your head. It is important not to judge at this stage, just get the words on the paper.

Keep asking yourself the questions:

• “What’s important to me”?
• “And what else is important to me?”

Step 2

Once  you have written as many value words as you can possibly think of, highlight or circle the ones that jump out as being the most important. The number is of values is  will be somewhere between 6 and 20.

Write the values out in columns like so:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 3

Rank the values in order of importance to you. To do this, take the word you feel is the most important and ask yourself, if it really is more important than all the other values. If it passes this test it is your number one value. Next choose the value think would be number two and ask yourself if it is more important to you than all the other values. Continue this until you have ranked all the values on your list.

You will end up with a hierarchical list of your values.

Step 4

If you did this process for personal life now do it for work or vice versa.

When you have completed your second value list:

• Ask yourself if any of these values are in direct conflict.
• If they are you are probably experiencing some amount of life chaos or stress.

With Self Leadership coaching or training, it is possible to align your values so that you feel focused, energized and in harmony.