Your Personal Values. The compass to your authentic self.

The drivers behind all of life’s important decisions

What are personal values?

Your personal values are like a compass, they help you navigate your way forward in life. They serve as a powerful tool at your disposal when you are not sure what decision to make next. You may be looking for your dream career, want to discover your passions in life, or just ready to take life in a new direction. I believe values to be one of the most important things a person should know about themselves. You see, values sit behind every decision we make in life, either consciously or unconsciously. When we are aware of them they make our decision making process a lot easier and ensure we are aligning our decisions with our most authentic self. However, when we are not aware of them problems start to appear. We make decisions that do not align with what is important to us, the things that bring us the most satisfaction in life. Have you ever made an important decision and regretted it afterwards? Perhaps you made the decision and then had this feeling at the pit of your stomach signalling something was not right? More than likely the decision you made was not in alignment with your highest values. Understanding what your values are will help you prevent mistakes and help you create a more meaningful life.

Benefits of knowing your values

• Increased self-confidence and self-worth.
• Better understanding of your strengths and weaknesses.
• Improved decision-making and problem-solving skills.
• Clearer vision for what you want your future to look like and what you want to achieve.
• Helps set clear boundaries with others and reduces stress.
• Increased life satisfaction as your choices align fully with what is important to you.

Discovering your personal values is the beginning of a self-discovery journey that will help you look inward. You will begin to understand your truest self, your needs and desires, and your passions in life. 

When uncovering values, I usually get my clients to think back to a time when they felt most at ease in their life. This might be just a particular day or period in their life, it may even be the present day. I get them to really visualise that time in their life, the people they were with, the feelings they experienced and what was going on around them.

Start by thinking about some of the most meaningful moments in your life and what made them meaningful to you. For example, perhaps it was a summer where you spent a lot of time with family and friends going on adventures and trying new things.

Next, ask yourself what did that moment do for you. Using the above example let’s say that moment gave you a sense of adventure, connection, excitement and love. Then dig deeper by asking what was important about the sense of adventure and excitement. Maybe it was the feeling of freedom and spontaneity. You could keep asking the above question until you get 8 – 10 values.

Let’s take the values uncovered so far:

• Family
• Friendships
• Adventure
• Connection
• Excitement 
• Love 
• Freedom
• Spontaneity

Once you have a list of values, list them from the top down in terms of importance to you. 

Your highest value should be at the very top of your list. 

Now you have the tools to align your decisions with your values

As we have discovered, knowing our personal values has many benefits. When we consider our values in decision making, you can be ensured that you are doing what is right for your current and future happiness. 

Let’s take the above list of values we uncovered. Imagine these are your values and you have just been offered a promotion at work. It comes with a higher salary, a bigger team and more responsibility that requires you to work more weekends. By looking at your values list, it is likely to say if you took the promotion, the outcome would not align with what is most important to you in life. While you would get a higher salary which may provide you with more freedom, it would likely result in you spending less time with family and friends, resulting in less connection and moments of spontaneous adventure. Once you take on the role you would be compromising your values to fulfil your responsibilities at work. This would likely lead to decreased life satisfaction over time.

Do you see how quickly we can make a wrong decision if we do not take the time to consider our values. How do we prevent this from happening? The answer is simple, we need to consider if our decisions will give us more or less of what we want in life. 

Asking yourself this question everyday will help you consider what you will gain from a certain decision and what you will lose. If you are losing more than you are gaining that may be the signal that you are not making the right decision for yourself. Ultimately it is your personal values that can help you make decisions that align with your most authentic self. 

Your personal values might change over time

Now that you understand what personal values are, you can start your self-discovery journey and identify yours. The journey might not always be straightforward and as easy as we would like but it is worth it. There may be days when your decisions won’t align with your values, and you will need to reset the course. That is okay, just because you know your values does not mean you will never make a mistake again. Your values will guide your decisions and influence your actions to help you make the best decision at that time in your lives. Your values may also change over time, priorities might shift or circumstances in your life might change. We need to be open to adapting our values to the different stages in our life. Just because something was important to us a few years ago doesn’t mean it will be important to us today. This is why it is important to check in every now and again to revaluate your values. 

Uncovering what you value most in life will help you create a vision for your life that is beyond anything you imagined. Start the journey towards becoming your most authentic self today.