The Irony of Personal Values

Here is the great irony of personal values: By themselves have no value! But they can be a source of tremendous value IF you actively use them to adjust your actions and live in better alignment. During the last few years I’ve begun mindfully using my values to shape my intentions and actions. I still have a lot of room for improvement, but even in that short time the impact on my life has been dramatic. Here’s the good news: It is easy to articulate your values in an actionable way, increasing your Personal Leverage, and making your life a better place in the process.

In 2006, just after starting my current job, I did my first values exercise. I found it insightful, but in hindsight it was purely academic. There was no call to action, and consequently, no lasting impact on my life. Those papers went into a file never to be seen again. After all, now I knew my values. Mission accomplished, right? I was leaving a life changing opportunity on the table, and at the time I had no idea.

Values are the anchor points of the Personal Leverage Model. The most basic themes that are truly important in our lives.  A good values exercise will help you create an actionable foundation that can be used on a daily basis to help you live in better alignment.

If an equation existed that represented the “value of your values,” I would express it like this:

Value = Clarity + Connection + Accessibility

• Clarity: How clearly are your values defined?
• Connection: Is each of your values currently a central theme of significant importance in your life?
• Accessibility: Are your values accessible to help you set your intentions and guide your actions on a daily basis?

Visualize your values as an internal compass you use to navigate the outside world. As we grow and our perspective shifts, our values can change over time. Therefore, in order to maintain clarity, connection and accessibility, I recommend refreshing your values every year by going through the exercise below.

In the 6 months prior to writing this, I have experienced more life change than in the 5 previous years combined. Here are the 3 most significant changes:

• My wife left her stable corporate job to start her own consulting business.
• We purchased a house.
• We travelled to the Philippines to pick up our 3 newly adopted children.

With so much change going on, I felt this would be a great time to revisit my personal values.

I searched the web with the goal of finding a free, online values exercise that would challenge me to identify and frame a small number of core values in an actionable way. The one I resonated with most was this one from TapRooT.

I documented my process as I went through this exercise. You can find my notes below. My intention is to illustrate how easy it is to connect with your values in an actionable way. There is no better first step to begin growing your own Personal Leverage!

Step 1: Circle all of the values you connect with, and add any that are not on the list.

My notes on Step 1: Wow! 46 values circled in step 1. What comes to mind as I look at this… If everything is important, then nothing is.

Step 2: Sort all of the circled values into 5 similar groups. According to the Taproot instructions, they should be grouped in a way that “makes sense to you, personally.”  

My notes on Step 2: Since I have 6 groups, I need to eliminate one to get down to the 5 indicated in the instructions. This grouping and elimination process was tough since I don’t usually think about all of the different themes I connect with in my life, and how they would be grouped together.

Step 3: Select one value from each of the 5 remaining groups.

My notes on Step 3: I realized that the group I crossed out was actually a bunch of traits that I like to think of myself as having, as opposed to themes in my life I connect with. Very interesting to see that written down!

Step 4: Add a verb to each value you selected.

My notes on Step 4: Honestly, this was more challenging than I thought it would be. Surprisingly, it was one of the most beneficial parts of the entire exercise – primarily because it forced me to focus on application to my life and what that might look like. Notice the verbs I chose are underlined in the image above.

Do you have a system for defining your values that makes them accessible for active use in your life? I would love to hear from you!