Do you know what is important to you?
How do you live what is important to you?
For us to achieve long-term happiness, balance, stability and to stay on course is to live by our highest ideals.
When you know what is important to you it can make life easier, more in flow, grounded and you can handle what the world throws at you.
Instead of living in a reactive world where you are hoping, wishing, waiting, dreaming, you can be proactive about how to live your life by knowing what it is that is important to you, knowing what your values are.
Values are said to be the compass for our lives and our choices. They guide our decisions, they let you know what is important to you and if you know your values the decisions come easier and effortlessly. This has shown true for me and those that I work with. Successful people know their values and stand by them.
What you truly stand for are in your values and knowing them is fundamental for your life to be balanced, happy and fulfilled, to be absolutely clear on who you are, how you want to feel and who you want to be.
As I like to say, values are those emotional states we want to experience on a consistent basis.
Our emotions that we want to be experiencing regularly will help us live in alignment with our true selves. When we do not experience them consistently we can feel out of alignment and feel we are not living congruently with who we are.
When we find ourselves in a situation where we need to make a decision and are sitting on the fence or not sure how to make this decision, it is because we are unclear about what our values are, what we value the most, what is important to us.
Most people have no idea who they are, who they want to be or how they want to feel. They wait, they wish, they hope that life will work out.
If you do not know your values then when life becomes challenging you will not know what to do, you feel out of alignment and feel life is out of control. Living congruently with your values means you are happier, feel stronger and more balanced and believe in yourself. You will trust yourself when your back is against the wall.
I asked myself what emotional states did I want to experience on a regular basis and I realised that happiness, fun, health and vitality, joy, passion, compassion, adventure and growth were all there.
Up until that time I did not have any of those in my life so no wonder I was depressed, sad, angry and critical, I was not in control of my life.
When I did a values exercise, and came up with my top 10 values and started making decisions based on these, my life flipped to being harmonious, light and happy.
I also put rules in place for each value. One of my top values is adventure so my rules for adventure were:
I do something for fun every day OR
I try new things OR
I find challenges to take part in
I am committed to living to my values. My decisions are based on my values, I live according to my values, so I experience them on a daily basis.
Knowing your values is part of the blueprint to your happiness.
Here are some sample values, go through them quite quickly and circle ones that stand out to you. Once you are done, go back and pick 5 that strongly call to you or add your own and then put them in order of importance.
Look at your top 3 and see if you are experiencing these emotional states on a regular basis, if not start implementing rules that you will do something consistently to meet the need to experience this emotional state on a constant basis.
Abundance Acceptance Achievement
Adventure Balance Boldness
Calmness Compassion Connection
Contribution Creativity Delight
Determination Ecstasy Empathy
Excitement Faith Freedom
Fun Generosity Grace
Growth Gratitude Health
Independence Integrity Joy
Kindness Love Mindfulness
Openness Passion Persistence
Playfulness Pleasure Presence
Serenity Simplicity Spirit
Spontaneity Strength Transcendence
Truth Uniqueness Vitality
Warmth Wonder Zeal
When you start to live your life through your values you can set the goals that will get you there.
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