How to Identify Your Values - A Truthfully Honest Post

Finding and Aligning your Values with your Life and in Decision Making

Do you know your values? 

What is important to you? What is important for you in your day to day life? In a partner? In a friendship or a relationship? Are you making decisions based on the answers to these questions in order to create the kind of life that you want?

Creating a life that aligns with your values results in a meaningful, fulfilled, and happy life. I don't claim to be an expert of anything that I just wrote in that sentence - I am still learning, growing, changing - but I am definitely committed on my journey in the right direction so that every day I live a life that makes me truly happy. Maybe you are as well, in which case this post can contribute to your journey and perhaps help redirect you in the right direction!

What are Values?

Knowing, identifying, and living by your values can help you make sure you are living your life in a way that is meaningful and important to you and not anyone else. It's easy to ignore your values and continue simply living your life the way it comes, but when you do not honor your values, you are not honoring your potential best life. Whether or not you choose to recognize them, values are always there. You might have a few thoughts that come to mind when you think about what is important to you, such as family, good friends, having a clean and warm home, eating healthy, and working out.  But have you ever sat down and thought about why these things are important to you and really made that clear to yourself through writing it out?

But why should I care?  ... Because Life is all about decisions.

I have found that identifying my values has helped me in my decision making so that every choice is made in regards to what things are important to me and what I want in my life. These values can be general or specific... but your decision making will become easier the more specific you are about your values. If you know what is important to you in your career/job, family life, adventure life, etc. then you are able to make decisions accordingly. Choices such as "should I take the promotion?", "should I start my own business?", "Should I compromise or should I hold my position?", "what job direction should I pursue?", "Is this relationship right for me?". If you know what kind of life is important to you, you can make your decisions with those in mind. If a life of travel is important to you, maybe you should find a job that allows you to do that!

 Exercise- Identifying YOUR values! 

Write out your values... all the ones you can think of. If you are struggling, keep this question in the back of your mind: "What is important to me in a particular category?". For example, in terms of health, what is important to you? What values and way of life do you want to internalize for yourself? Ask yourself the same question in categories such as friendships, relationships, career/job life, family/children, travel, hobbies, etc.

Your values can be specific, such as, "a value of mine is to have a job in which I can still be family orientated and make a significant amount of time for my kids". On the other hand, they can also be more general, such as having a value of wanting to travel the world and live in many different places. You don't need to know all the details now, but having a general idea of what is important to you is a good place to start!

By writing out your values, you are internalizing them, reading them, and knowing them, so that they are so clearly in your head. You could see this process as a means of manifestation; however, the core of manifestation is simply focusing your energy on what you want and working hard towards it. "Working towards your values" means making decisions that align with them. Therefore, focusing on your values by writing them down and knowing them creates a really clear picture of how you want to live your life and seeing that life will encourage you to make decisions that honor the life you want in terms of your values.

Choose 3, keep it simple! 
Try to write out at least 3-5 if you are having a hard time coming up with and being clear on your values. I'm sure you can think of way more than that, but it's a good starting point so that this exercise about something a massive as "how I want to live my life" doesn't feel as daunting. It's a process and it can take time!

Choose three of your values to really focus on in your every day life. Which three are the most important to you? Write them out separately and hang them in your bathroom or by your front door or in your office. Have them in a place where you can read them everyday and remind yourself to make decisions based on those core values. As you realize that your decision making is becoming quicker whilst keeping those values in mind, feel free to add a few more to the list! But I suggest starting with three, to keep it simple and slowly get into the habit of consciously considering your values.

My Values - Some insight to get you started 

I began thinking about my values and what was important to me when I was looking at my relationships. I did not like the way certain things were developing and I realized I wasn't saying anything about them because I was not acknowledging that they were bothering me. It was hard to acknowledge those things in the first place because I didn't even realize why they were bothering me. The problem was that aspects of the relationships weren't alligning with my values. I realized, that if I was honest about what kind of relationships I wanted in my life, and really wrote it out, my current choices would not be highlighting my values.

I started researching, trying to better understand what values are and what kind of things I was supposed to be writing out in the process of identifying values. The hard part was is that people were explaining what values were, but no one was giving in-depth examples of them. I didn't know if I should just write "friendships" as a value or if I needed to be more specific than that. (I have personally decided to be more specific than that!). So, because of my experience, I wanted to hopefully change yours, and give you a few examples of what I have written out as being "my values". If they resonate with you, don't copy them word for word, but re-use the ideas in a way that apply to your own life. I have realized that values need to be more than just one word because how are you going to base a decision off of the word "friendship"? It could be a really shitty friendship but because you have decided friendships, in general, are important to you, you are going to make choices to prioritize this one. Instead, I suggest you write out the kind of friendships you want: truthful, honest, kind, open, communicative, fun-loving, etc. 

So without further-a-do, here are some of mine:

• To live, to my best ability, an environmentally aware and sustainable life.
• To be honest with myself and always speak my truth. 
• Continue living a minimalist lifestyle to my best ability in terms of what it means to me.
• Part 1: Be conscious about what I buy and buy sustainable products as much as possible.
• Part 2: Have the ease that minimalism brings, to know that I have everything I need, so that I can put the rest of my earnings towards travel and memories, not stuff.
• To have, make, nurture relationships/friendships that are based on honesty, trust, communication, forgiveness, support, and love.
• To have a healthy and balanced lifestyle.
• Feel great physically and mentally: working out, eating healthy, also indulging from time to time, being outdoors in nature 
• Practicing yoga, meditation, journal, self-reflection.
• Live in many different places 
• Family! To have great relationships with my family members, have my own family one day, and be close geographically to those who are important to me. 

The list goes on still. If it helps, I suggest even writing out your values under different headings. Have a heading for friendships, for relationships, for the kind of home you want, the job you want, and so on. I have found that we generally have many smaller values under the big ones.

If you are completely lost, journal for a few minutes about what you love about your life, what you would currently like to change, and feel what aspects make you really excited!

It's time to be honest with yourself about what is and is not working for you in your life, and through identifying your values, you can work towards creating a life where you are in control and the choices you make are exciting and not only stressful!

Now, go be awesome!