5 Steps to Knowing Your Values
An embodied self-awareness practice for navigating leadership transitions.
Conscious of them or not, your intrinsic values are a driving force behind your behaviour, thinking patterns, emotional reactions and decisions.
Your values inform who and what you prioritise and what gives meaning to your life and work.
Getting clear on what they are helps you achieve the goals that are meaningful to you, serve as a guiding compass to come back to when you are navigating uncertainty and helps those around you understand you and what’s important to you. Susan David Ph.D, Psychologist and Author of Emotional Agility calls this “Walking your why”.
An honest, on-going reflection and re-assessment of your values is a valuable self-awareness practice and important for cultivating your emotional intelligence and emotional agility.
When things change
Pre-pandemic I felt pretty clear on my values - life and work was busy, adventurous, full and expansive. For me, and I know for many of you, three years of global volatility, reckoning and trauma cracked open all of us to collectively and individually reassess what we value and what’s important.
Seeded early in life, our values are informed by upbringing, education, culture, family, friends. We carry them with us but as we grow and move through life’s events and experiences, our values can shift and morph too.
I’ve valued adventure, it informed many of my life and business decisions but over the last few years, it’s no longer up there as a key driver for me. It still has importance but much less so. When things change in our outer world, it’s time to pay attention to our inner world; what’s changed there? What’s important to me now?
A state of flux is the ideal time to reassess your values.
The leaders I work with are usually moving through a transition - a new role, new team, new expectations, increased responsibility and accountability. They’re very often receiving feedback that’s challenging them to make changes to their behaviour and/or beliefs. Transitions can be a really challenging time, they come with discomfort, uncertainty, a lack self-assuredness.
A state of flux where the old (expertise, habits, beliefs, certainties) is needing to be let go and the new isn’t clear yet. The good news about a state of flux though, is it’s a pause in the speed of modern life. It’s also an ideal time to reflect on your values, to understand what’s driving your thoughts, feelings, decisions and behaviour now.
When you’re clear on what you value, those around you feel clear.
For those of you leading people, it’s important to understand what lies underneath your challenging conversations, how you give and receive feedback, lead through change, communicate goals and your expectations, and support other people who are moving through their own transitions. This self-reflection practice allows you to pause and ask yourself -
‘What values of mine are not being met here? ‘ or
‘What values of mine are being triggered or challenged by this situation (or person)?’
You can then also get curious about understanding others (and adjusting your actions accordingly) by asking yourself -
‘What values does this person have that might be challenged / affirmed / impacted by me right now?’
You don’t need to be explicit about sharing what your values with others but when you know yourself, there is an internal clarity that comes across in how you communicate and behave externally, those around you feel clear and settled. You experience a calm confidence from the inside out, and people around you will respond well to that.
5 Steps to knowing your values - a whole system approach
Step 1 - Create the time & space for reflection
Create some space for yourself. Choose 30-mins in a quiet space where you won’t be interrupted. Put away your phone. Give yourself this time and pause to allow whatever wants to flow and bubble up from the inside out. Have a notepad and pen ready.
Step 2 - Express your long list
Review this long list of values and start to write down all the values that stand out to you. Try not to overthink it, allow your instinct to guide you to what is important in the present, now.
Write with pencil/pen and paper instead of type on your phone/laptop as there is a direct meridian channel from our hands to heart. When we physically put pen to paper there is an energy flow which opens up for more heart-full expression. This is a whole body process — head, heart, gut, hands. Allow yourself to just freely. You may find yourself feeling that many are important to you and you have a long list of about 12-15.
Step 3 - Review what’s really important, with your whole system
Now reflect on your long list. As you read the words, notice any tension in your mind or body that you may feel between what you want and what you value. These are different things. (This may feel/look like a tightening stomach, clenched jaw, furrowed brow, thoughts, memories or expectations attaching to certain words over others). As you read and notice, start to sense the varying degrees of importance and depth of each of the values. Consider what would impact your happiness, your feelings of success and your general sense of peace, if they were not present and aligned to how you show up in your life right now. This will help you start to refine and get clear on what’s MOST important.
Step 4 - Short list and rank in order of importance
From your long list, force yourself to choose a maximum of 6 values from your long list and rank them in order of importance. Trust your gut and let your right-brain connect the dots without your left-brain needing to over-analyse too much. Let go and follow your intuitive intelligence.
*Some prompts for contemplation as you do this -
Notice what thoughts, images, sensations or feelings are present as you rank and sort your shortlist. As you look at the words on your list, what do they activate in you?
Are your choices intrinsic to you or are outer influences at play? Are they what are truly important to you in your life or are they the echo of other people’s voices, opinions or approval?
Are they how you want to be seen or how you want to be?
You may have some scribbles and crosses out before your ranking feels right.
Step 5 - Get laser-like clarity and finalise your top 5
Now get rid of value 6 on your short list and narrow it down to 5. This will give you laser-like clarity on what is most meaningful to you which then informs your energy and how you show up in your work, leadership, relationships.
*Sense(ation) testing
Settling now on your top 5 values, read the words again, notice the sensations, thoughts or feelings that are present.
Do the values you’ve written down feel exciting, nourishing, grounding, activating?
Do they feel thin and bubbly like candy floss or champagne? Or do they feel solid and nourishing, like fertile soil?
(In my experience, true, intrinsic values feel like the latter - grounding, nourishing, fertile).
Intrinsic v’s Extrinsic - a final note
If you’re having difficulty shortlisting to 5, you can review your list again to see if there some values that are actually the outer expression (or attainment) of your intrinsic values. For example, well-being is important to me (it was on my long list) but I achieve and embody well-being whilst being in alignment with my intrinsic values of competency and peace.
Finally - keep your values in your iPhone and/or write them somewhere you can see easily and often.