Resolutions Are Great, But Have You Checked In On Your Values?
We are into the first week of January and everywhere we can find inspiring messages telling us to go for our goals this year, but I haven’t seen much about values.
Here’s the thing, values are at the core of everything we do and an awareness of our values actually helps us to predict the future and see whether the goals we have created are in fact achievable. If we are making new goals we really ought to first look at our values.
When was the last time you sat down and checked in on yourself, and asked yourself what is truly important to you? Our values are like a list of guiding principles that help us to show up in the world. They help us to work out what to say “no” to and what to say “hell yes” to. Our values are not binary, they can and will change throughout our lives based on where we are at, the responsibilities we have, the things we have achieved sometimes we don’t even realise that our values have changed, which is why I personally like to do a yearly values check.
Here’s how I check in on my values:
Find a values list, there are load available online, but James Clear and Brene Brown both have some extensive lists on their websites.
Choose the 10 values that resonate with you the most.
Now read the list again and reduce down to 5.
These are your 5 guiding principles and should be considered when writing your goals.
Values and Goals
When writing a goal or a resolution it is important to make it clear, concise, easy to remember and it must align with your values.
For Example:
Your values might be ambition, connection, kindness, respect, well-being.
A possible goal you might have for this year could be to help other through community pursuits and charity, this would align with the values connection, kindness and respect.
Another trap we fall into sometimes is we make goals that we THINK we want to achieve but that don’t in fact align with our values. This happens when we are influenced by others or make goals out of a feeling of responsibility towards others rather than really listening to ourselves. The most successful goals are ones that speak to us, ones that motivate us, excite us and align with who we are at our core.
The year is 2024, it is time to start listening to your values and showing up for yourself.
With every new client before we set goals we look at values and what they mean to us, think this is something you would be interested in talking about with me? Or maybe you just don’t know where to start with setting some goals for the year, I can help with that too. Book a coaching consultation today!
