In this blog, learn how to identify your core values and understand how they drive your emotions, behaviours and actions.
Introduction
Let's start with a couple of definitions of Values:
'Principles or standards of behaviour; one’s judgement of what is important in life' – Oxford English Dictionary
'A way of being or believing that we hold most important' – Brené Brown, Dare to Lead
Core values are unique and individualised as we choose different combinations of what's most important to us in our lives. There is often a misconception that we have 'work' and 'life' values but we only have one true set of values that permeate across all of our life. Your values shape our actions and life decisions. They are your guiding North Star and fuel your emotions, behaviours and actions. They are embedded in your unconscious, although you can become consciously aware of them through developing self-awareness.
Towards Values
This is when your motivation or reason for having the Value is to move towards something positive.
Away From Values
Your motivation is negative as its purpose is to move away from something or to avoid something.
Your Belief System is a set of interconnected beliefs, values, attitudes, and assumptions that you hold about the world, yourself, and the fundamental aspects of existence.
Identifying my own Core Values
Core values have come up for me twice this week, firstly during Coaching Supervision and secondly, whilst writing my Coaching Accreditation application.
My core values are integrity, optimism, personal growth, fun and creativity.
On some unconscious level, integrity and optimism have always been there although in the background for numerous years. However, once I had identified and articulated them, I was able to see how they had influenced my behaviour and actions for most of my life. I am aware that these were very much formed during my childhood. I grew up in a Catholic family with very strong morals and values where I was often reminded of how ‘worse off’ other people might be, how ‘lucky I was’ and the need to be a ‘role model’ for my siblings. I am grateful for my upbringing as it helped me to grounded, considerate, inclusive and caring.
My personal growth story began when I was a young mother with minimal academic achievements and a lack in confidence in terms of my abilities and prospects. Being a young mother drove a need in me to learn, develop and forge a career. This meant working through internal battles of self-limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome. Every time I achieved a new qualification, certification or promotion, I kept thinking – what next? The sky’s the limit!
I’ve had huge personal growth over the years and keep surprising myself with what I can achieve when I put my mind to it. That’s what led me into people development and coaching. We all have so much potential and often we’re only scratching on the surface. It’s such a joy to see people have a breakthrough and go on to have greater personal and professional success. Are you living your best life or just scratching the surface?
Interestingly, my other values needed to be unearthed. Thinking back to childhood, fun and creativity where always there but with the expectation to tow the line, be a role model, perform well academically, etc. I think some of it got lost along the way. I was a sensitive, and at times serious, child / teen. Life experience and self-discovery helped me to reconnect with my authentic self. As I sit writing this, I see that a lot of my work is centred around being able to be creative and inject some fun along the way which led me into people development.
On a personal level, I’ve rediscovered art over recent years and now this is a permanent fixture in my life. I'm keen to incorporat art into my work too, along with play. It helps to free us from our self-imposed limitations and expand our thinking.
How to Identify your own Core Values
Find somewhere quiet and free from distractions for an hour. Have something to write, draw, type or record on for capturing your thoughts.
With an open mind and curiosity, think about the following questions:
What's most important to me in my life?
What do I hold most dear?
Part 1 - write, draw, type or record all the words that come to mind (try to keep to single words). Don't think about their meaning, just capture everything. When you run out of thoughts. Ask yourself:
What else is most important to me in my life?
What else do I hold most dear?
And what else?
Capture additional or repeated thoughts.
Part 2 - when you feel that you have a complete list (sometimes a good indicator is when you have repeat words), narrow your values list down to your top 6. These will become your core values. If you can, narrow these down again to 2.
What do you notice?
Part 3 - test your values:
What's so important about each value?
What evidence do you have of living these values? How do they drive your emotions, behaviours and actions?
What happens when any of these values come into conflict or aren't being met?
What do you think?
How does it make you feel?
It may be that you are already familiar with your core values and this is an opportunity to revisit and test them. If this is the first time that you've completed this type of activity or taken more of a deep dive, think about what you want to do with your new insights.
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