Strategies to identify and choose your Core Values

How would you define your core values? Do you know they drive your decisions, behaviour and priorities?

Identifying your core values is probably the first step to take before starting the journey to find your purpose. Take some time for this self-reflection because values are the foundation of who you are.

What do you stand for?

“Living according to your highest values is the secret to living an inspired and fulfilling life”. Dr Demartini

Identifying your core values and aligning your work, your goals, activities, and the people around you with those values will allow you to live a more meaningful and fulfilling life.

What are core values?

“Values are a kind of ethical GPS we can use to navigate through life”. Jay Shetty

Core values are your internal compass, guiding you to the people, activities, places or things that will fulfil you most. Think of anything that moves your deepest core.

Values are as unique as your retina or your fingerprint. Even if integrity is a common value, the way you translate it in your daily life will always be unique. They define WHO YOU ARE, not what you believe others think who you should be.

Core values will help you to focus your attention on what really matters and provide guidance in all your daily decisions, providing a safe barrier against external influences, chatter and distractions. They are the filter through which you run all decisions, temptations, requests or invitations.

Where do values come from?

"When I was a child, my mother said to me, “If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general. If you become a monk, you’ll be the pope.” Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso". Pablo Picasso

In his book “Think Like a Monk”, Jay Shetty talks about different influences on our internal value and belief system:

Experience: What did your parents praise you for? Who did they want you to be? What did they want you to accomplish? How did they want you to behave? Did you experience any major events in your childhood?
Education: Which values did your school teach you? Did they really matter for you? Which subjects had the most impact? Which cultural angle was used during your education?
Media: Our values are influenced by whatever absorbs our minds. Which news feed, books, movies, websites, games and social media are feeding your mind. Do celebrity gossip, violent video games, images of success … taint your values with envy, judgment, competition and discontent? If you don’t clear away from these distractions, they will determine your values!

How to identify your core values?

A couple of years ago, I started a personal journey to identify and write down my own personal values. There are many strategies out there, most of them based on self-reflection, looking at your past behaviour, decisions and influences. For me, there was a lot of value in the methodical approach designed by success mentor Darren Hardy in “The Compound Effect”, especially thanks to the amount of guidance and templates he puts out your disposal.

My exercise resulted in the following values:

R espect for people, planet and property

E nergize myself and those around me

S eek first to understand, then to be understood.

P ositive impact

E xcellence is the goal in everything I do

C ongratulate mildly, thank generously.

T hing – always do the right thing.

Dr Demartini designed another powerful exercise. He called it the 13 value determinants:

How do you fill your space? Write down anything close to you (tech, food, kids, books, … )
What do you spend time on?
What energizes you most? When you wake up, this is what you want to start doing first.
What do you spend your money on? Not your regular expenses but the things you value.
Where are you most organized and ordered? Work, home, knowledge, travel, …
Where are you most disciplined and reliable? People can count on you to do this.
What do you think about? Meaning how you want your life to be.
What do you visualize? Make sure there’s evidence!
What do you affirm? If there’s no evidence, it’s fantasy, not value so don’t put it down.
What inspires you? What’s consistent between the people who inspire you?
What do you want to discuss with other people? What brings tears in your eyes?
What are the 3 most consistent and persistent goals you have? No fantasies, real ones!
What do you want to learn about?

Whatever strategy you choose, the main thing is, to be honest with yourself. Your values are not your ideals. They are what you actually demonstrate, not what you think you ought to demonstrate. Many state values they wish they had. Instead of facing who they really are, they lose themselves in who they wish to become.

It’s also important to clear away from any distractions to do this exercise, allowing you to reach your subconscious mind and find what truly matters.

Any major change, experience or life decision may trigger a reflection on your core values.

Experimenting with diverse experiences, values and belief systems will also help you to understand your own.

Jay Shetty mentions 3 ways to create space for reflection in “Think Like a Monk”:

Daily reflection on how your day went, what emotions you’re feeling
Once a month, go to some place you never went before
Get involved in something meaningful, hobby, charity, …

According to Mark Manson :

good values are evidence-based, constructive and controllable : creativity, honesty, building something new, vulnerability, self-respect, charity, humility.
Bad values are emotion-based, destructive and uncontrollable : dominating through manipulation or violence, feeling good all the time, always being in the centre of attention, being liked by everybody, being rich for the sake of being rich.

How to reinvent yourself?

Still, according to Mark Manson, you can always reinvent yourself by letting go “bad values” and replacing them with new ones using the following strategy:

The values must fail: to let go, the value must be contradicted through experience or by the real world. Pursuing too much money ultimately brings greater stress and alienation.
We must have the self-awareness to recognize that our values have failed. Losing a value feels as though we’re losing a part of ourselves. Please don’t blame the world around you or yourself, instead, consider that the value itself is at fault.
Question the value and brainstorm what values could do a better job: instead of trying to win everything, try to focus on merely giving your best effort. Instead of valuing more money, personal freedom would be a better orientation.
Live the new value: values are won and lost through life experience, not logic or feelings. It often takes courage to live them (like the KKK leader in the video below). Don’t come up with excuses for why you wait or do it next time.
Reap the benefits of the new value: living out your new values feels good and will help you to continue living the new value (like taking a cold shower, after the shock passes you’ll feel relieved, alive, confident).

How to unleash your values?

Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.” Brené Brown

During her inspiring TED talk “Unleashing your core values”, Jennifer Jones presents a story for every one of her core values (Service – Gratitude – Love – Integrity – Leadership).

She uses the act (and genuine art in her case) of storytelling to share her own journey. I believe it’s a great idea to create your personal story for each of your values. This will help you to share and remember them, but most of all, to give your personal meaning to each value.

Tip: journaling every day about how you lived one of your values is a great way to maintain alignment with your core being.

Conclusion

This is the secret of the ages, the true foundation of all human greatness. It is the core value and the essential unifying principle of truly exceptional people. And the most wonderful thing about love is that you can fill your life with it by deciding to do so. The choice is yours. It always has been. I wish you luck. I wish you success and happiness. And above all, I wish you love. Brian Tracy, Maximum Achievement.

Every moment of every day, whether you realize it or not, you are deciding how to spend your time, of what to pay attention to, of where to direct your focus and energy.

By starting to identify your core values, you’ll see what is most meaningful in your life. Understanding your personal core values and aligning your life accordingly will bring fulfilment and joy to every aspect of your life: relationships, work, financial, spiritual, mental and physical.

Take care and stay safe,

Jürgen

References:

The Compound Effect, Darren Hardy

The Values Factor: The Secret to Creating an Inspired and Fulfilling Life, Dr John De Martini

Maximum Achievement, Brian Tracy

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, Stephen R. Covey

Think Like a Monk, Jay Shetty

Finding Your Life Purpose, Mark Manson