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What Are Your Values?

Guest post by: Michael Hume

Article Overview: Here's one approach to taking your personal values inventory. It may not be a perfect recipe for you (people do vary), but it's sure to start you reflecting on what's important in your life, and to help you find your own way to clarity around your values, your mission, and your passion.

What Are Your Values?

Take An Hour To Take Your Personal Inventory Inspirational leaders are inspired people in their own right. And if you get to know an inspired person, you're likely to find s/he's driven to a large extent by a fairly well-defined set of personal values.

If you find yourself unable to "get inspired," or in a situation where you are struggling to bring passion to your work or life, it's probably time to take inventory of your values. We all need to step back and reflect on our values from time to time... because as your life changes, so might your outlook, and the things you find important might shift a little. The core, bedrock principles that make you who you are probably shouldn't change much, or very often... but it's worth checking once in a while. Only after you are clear on your own values can you determine whether your passion will come back after you change yourself, or whether it's your situation that needs to change.

Here's one approach to taking your personal values inventory. It may not be a perfect recipe for you (people do vary), but it's sure to start you reflecting on what's important in your life, and to help you find your own way to clarity around your values, your mission, and your passion.

First, start with a clean sheet of paper, a quiet place to reflect (the more inspiring, the better), and an open mind. Spend five minutes or so simply dismissing your current worries. You might want to do some deep-breathing, and I've heard a colleague describe the process of clearing your mind as akin to "watching logs float away on a river." Once you're able to get your mind away from the day-to-day problems and concerns, start writing down one-word labels for your values. Try to write as many as possible - if you have any connection to that value at all, write it down... the idea at this point is to be as inclusive as possible. Words you write might include things like "integrity," "excellence," or "tenacity." Don't worry about whether you perceive any overlap between words... for instance, "tenacity" and "persistence" might feel similar, but include them both if they're relative to you.

Push yourself. See if you can get to fifty value-words, or even more.

As a second step, go ahead and collapse the words into groups that might be similar (here's where "tenacity" and "persistence" might become travelling-buddies in a collection you might call something like "Hanging In There"). You might get your list of fifty words down to twenty-or-so groups.

Finally, force yourself to pick your top five. You're not saying number seven, say, isn't important... but make yourself make the hard choices about what the top five are. You want to be able to clearly articulate the five most important values you personally care about.

Mine are, roughly, Inspiration, Creativity, Empathy, Personal Responsibility, and Excellence. You'll notice that some of my Top Five are more easily related to my work than are others... but that's my list. It helps inform my decisions around which activities I choose to spend my time, energy, and attention on.

Once you've identified (or confirmed) your short-list of personal values, the natural next step is to measure what's going on in your life against that list. Is your job forcing you to act against your values? If so, you may want to seek a change... or at least start a business on the side as a way to hedge your bets, and possibly as an exit strategy to help you make a gradual transition away from your job. How about your relationships away from work? Are you spending time with people who reinforce your values and energize you, or have some of your friendships started to be a drain on your emotional energy? You may want to make some new friends by joining new organizations or aligning with communities of like-minded people. Not that you would dump your old friends, but you could start spending some of your free time with some new friends in addition. Are your investments aligned with your vision for your future, and will that future align with your values? If not, think about how you can build your knowledge about the rapidly-changing world economy... you want to be able to live your values by helping others who may not be as prepared for the changes that are coming our way. And how about your health? Is strong vitality part of your value set? If so, are you working out? Taking your vitamins? Watching what you eat?

If it's been awhile since you felt you were living an exciting, passionate life, take an hour to reflect on your values. Getting clarity on what you stand for might help you re-ignite your job, your relationships, and your life.

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Article Tags: entrepreneurship, health wealth and happiness, inspirational leadership, personal responsibility



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