Good morning!
Last week, we talked about getting down to the nitty gritty of who you are so that you can experience more confidence, empowerment, and clarity.
We’re just gonna keep going right along that path today with some new ideas today to deepen your relationship with yourself.
The significance of personal values
As individuals, our core values shape a lot of our identities.
Being acquainted with these gives us more purpose and fulfillment.
It also gives us more outlets to show up as our authentic selves.
Many values have been placed on us by our parents, others close to us, and even society.
That can get us into a bit of trouble if we don’t sort through it all and find out which ones really resonate with us!
I think of this as an attic filled with all kinds of different items that were were left to us
Some of these items (values) are incredibly precious, while some others might need to go in the donation bin.
It can get a little cluttered up there after a while if we don’t take the time to go through it all and decide what we want to keep.
Going through the clutter
A powerful exercise is to find the values that were instilled in you by others.
Start by listing the relationships that have been the most formative for you.
As you go through these influential relationships one by one, write down all the values you observe in the other person.
Once you have your list, go over it and decide which values you want to keep and which ones you want to let go of.
You will almost certainly find some you’ve been holding onto that no longer serve you.
So, make a note of the ones you’re ready to release.
This may not lead to an overnight shift, but even just the awareness of this is powerful and it really helps to clear the clutter in your brain so you can make room for new things!
Discovering your own values
Once we’ve cleared the slate and let go of the values that aren’t serving us, we can start to grab ahold of the ones that are in alignment with who we are.
There are lots of ways to go about this, so I’ll just mention two of my favorites.
The first way is to look at people you admire the most and notice which attributes they possess that move you.
Maybe you admire people who are compassionate, hilarious, generous, honest, organized, or driven.
The attributes you admire in others are all values you possess.
Another easy way to discover your core values is to take an online assessment.
Here’s a link to one I took and enjoyed:
https://personalvalu.es/personal-values-list
Prioritizing your values
Now that we know what your values are, I want you to think about your life as it is right now.
Looking at yourself from the outside, is it clear what things you value most?
Are you operating out of those values?
If there’s room for improvement, take some time and think about what it would look like to prioritize what means the most to you.
Look for ways you can operate more fully out of that place.
With this vision in mind, you will naturally start to show up more authentically and with more purpose.
Takeaways:
- We all have core values, whether we know what they are or not.
- Before we can start operating out of them, we first have to let go of the values we learned from others if they’re not in alignment with who we are.
- We can easily discover what our values are by looking at what we admire in others and/or by taking a quiz.
- To prioritize our values, we can objectively look at what we’re currently prioritizing to see if any adjustments need to be made
I hope this helped you feel empowered to discover more about yourself!
You are worth getting to know.