Do You Have Values?

By Chris Beane

I’ll bet your answer is yes. However, can you actually tell me what they are? Perhaps that would be a better, but tougher question for you to answer. You see, we are all told we should have values, yet rarely does anyone actually tell us, or even better, teach us how to go about developing our values. Your values are the compass guiding your actions and shaping your identity. They provide direction and meaning to your life. Your values will help you live a life that is fulfilling and meaningful. Understanding our values is essential for navigating life's decisions, and finding fulfillment. Let’s start with a clear definition as to what values are. We often hear values associated with terms like:

This is a mistake. It’s a mistake on how to correctly think about values as they pertain to an individual’s core value system. What are often referred to as values are, in my opinion, morals. Values are the things you value in life. While having solid morals is important, you need to know they are different than your values. Think about this as the things you find fulfillment in doing. To do this, let’s think about the different hats you wear on a given day, week, month, or even year. This is the starting point for developing your core value system. Let me give you a few of mine as an example:

Christian

Your list will undoubtedly be different than mine. I strongly encourage you to actually write a list for yourself. Your list really needs to consist of between 5 and 10 values.

Now that we have a better understanding as to what values are and have your own list of values, what’s next? Good question. Now we need to rank your values. You need to decide what is most important to you. Having your values ranked is important because it will allow you to make decisions about your life based on your most important values. This is a task that will undoubtedly need to be done over several attempts, so don't expect to get this correct the first time.

The next stage is to set a “Why” to each of your values. This is as simple as stating why this value is important to you. Try to keep each of your “Why’s” simple and directly relevant to you. The why stage is there to help keep you on track, and keeping these values apart of who you are moving forward. Friedrich Nietzsche said:

We want this “Why” to be our motivation to keep us on track and living a life that is in accordance to our values. For example, lets take my value of being a Father, my why is “I want to be the type of father who is there for his kids. I want to be involved in their lives. I want to always have a positive relationship with them.”

To further contribute to motivation in these areas, let’s build an affirmation for each of your values. An affirmation is an “I am” statement. The importance of this cannot be overstated, as it will allow you to become your values. My affirmation for being a husband is, “I am a husband who loves and respects his wife. I am the best husband in the world.” Having affirmations like this may seem silly at first and building this system is a daunting task for sure. But if you can correctly identify your values and live a life that is in accordance with your values, it will all be worth it. Having these affirmations also allows you to continually remind yourself of the person you want to become.

You may think you are done now. You have your list of values, they are in rank order of most important to you, you have a strong “Why” statement for each, and you even have an affirmation for each. But what do we do with this information? Should you just leave it on your desk or in a note in your phone? No, of course not. The last step on your journey to discovering your values is in the application of the system. For each of your values, set an alarm on your phone to go off when that value is most important to you and label the alarm with your affirmation. Let’s take my value of being a father. My affirmation is, “I am the best father in the world.” It would not benefit me for that alarm to go off when the kids are at school or when I am at work. I have that alarm set for the weekend, at a time I know I will be with my kids. The alarm goes off, I read my affirmation, then I go put that affirmation into action. Another wonderful way to put this system into action is by adding your values to your calendar. Each time you add an item to your calendar, set what value that calendar item is in relation to.

Once you have this value system in place, then you can begin to live a life that is in line with your core values. If you have a decision to make, reflect on your core values before taking action on making that decision. I truly hope you go through the steps necessary to build a core value system. I can say this has been monumental for me in my own life.

If you would like assistance in developing this system for yourself you can email me, prestigiousinitiative@gmail.com.