Discovering Your Values

So, you are buying a new car. Unclear and unprepared you walk into the showroom and face a grinning salesman who is determined to sell you something you can ill afford and will long regret. You freeze! You are faced with an overwhelming myriad of colors, designs, features, and prices. Do you focus on the promise of an exhilarating, open top coastal road trip, breathtaking acceleration, or reassuring safety statistics? Should the shiny, sleek curves, or expansive storage guide your decision?

Now imagine a very different scenario. You walk in knowing exactly what you are looking for and how to communicate it. You are crystal clear on the price, color, and features that you know are perfect. You are calm; the decision almost makes itself!

And now imagine that is the way you live. You have a clear understanding of the things that give you joy and fulfillment, you take them seriously and design life around them.

Core Values are those invisible preferences that, through their presence or absence give joy or anxiety, attract or repel, yield peace or stress. We all have them, but so few people stop to assess and understand exactly what they are.

Those that do can easily choose the best way to spend their time, energy, and money. They make decisions quickly and with more certainty. With healthy, clear, well communicated boundaries they are happier in relationships and at work. Confidence grows, life becomes easier and more energized.

Here’s a few simple tips to help you start to find yours:

Watch your feelings (and increase Emotional Intelligence!). Values are hiding in plain sight, and emotions tell us when they are around. Feeling good? A Value is probably present in some form. Become an expert at noticing and naming the emotions you have.

Write them down! Get a journal or large piece of paper and write down those situations, no matter how seemingly insignificant, where positive feelings are present. What was going on? What was the feeling?

Play Detective! With all those situations and feelings in one place, notice the patterns! What’s underneath the various situations that ties them together? What are the common themes and threads? Crunch it all down to 10 or less Core Values.

Ask a Sokya Coach how you can discover your Core Values, and how you can use them to create the life you have been longing for.

[object Object]