Are You Living Your Values?
Life coaching is about facilitating meaningful change. Real change begins when we understand our values and clarify what is genuinely important to us. Examining our values is thus a foundational step in a successful coaching partnership.
Our lives have more meaning when we live in alignment with our values. Like a trusted mentor, our values act as a compass guiding our decision-making. They anchor us in our authentic selves. From this place, we manage hardships and enjoy life as we progress toward our vision. When we live our values, we also experience a true sense of purpose, greater happiness, more engagement, and less distress.
Check out this short and entertaining video - Values vs Goals - created by Dr. Russ Harris. The video nicely illustrates the benefit of living by our values in the context of an everyday event. Enjoy!
Our values can change over time. They may also show up differently in various parts of your life. Or they may be more or less significant depending on the setting. For example, innovation might be a value at work. Tradition might be a value at home.
Examination of values is an iterative process of discovery. A starting point for some might be journaling, meditating, or reflecting on what has significance in their lives. For others, walking in nature, listening to music, or dancing might bring their values to light. If you struggle to define your values, consider when things were going particularly well. What values were guiding you then?
A classic values clarification exercise asks you to consider a list of values and identify which ones are most important to you. It may include a series of writing prompts to help you refine and narrow your list. Typically, the goal is to identify your five most important values.
Brené Brown shares an exercise and content for Living Into Our Values in her book Dare to Lead. According to Brown, “Living into our values means that we do more than profess our values, we practice them.” Her exercise asks questions about who we are at our best, what behaviors support our values, and how we know when we live outside them.
The “Bulls Eye” is a values-clarification exercise designed by a Swedish ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) therapist called Tobias Lundgren and adapted here by the Happiness Trap. In this exercise, the bull’s eye graphically illustrates when we are acting inconsistently with our values and when we are fully living within them.
I found that creating a constellation of my values is an effective way to visualize them. I use mind mapping to illustrate how they link or influence each other. Seeing my representation every day gently reminds me to live within them.
What strategies have you found to identify and live within your values? If you are uncertain, working with a life coach might be a solution.
