What do you value?
The deeply personal and profound uncovering of who you are and why you do what you do.
It’s a simple question. It’s a big question. But if you don’t spend time thinking about it, you can easily get blown off course.
I decided to answer this question by working with an executive leadership coach last year (who happens to be a long-time colleague). As with all big questions, it felt, well, BIG at first, but I loved the approach we took to get there.
The Process 💡
It started with a long list of values words. Then, I crossed out 25 that did not align at all. Next, I circled ten that resonated. Finally, I picked the most important 5-6. I attempted to narrow it down to three, but five is where I landed.
Some of the things I crossed off surprised me. Like “efficiency and speed.” In the past, I loved everything about productivity and efficiency. While that bone is still in my body, I don’t lead my life that way anymore. It started feeling robotic to me and the opposite of how I wanted to live. Words that feel more exciting to me are organic, human, and imperfect. I didn’t realize that I had moved so far away from that over the past five years or so. I think living through a global pandemic and birthing a child had something to do with that seismic shift. As a recovering perfectionist, writing “imperfect” as desirable is a funny turn of events.
I’ve been living with the final list for about eight months, and when I see the words I’ve pasted in my bathroom and on my desk, they still ring true. I don’t see them as ordered—they exist as an organism… because they are me!
My values
Arts and Creativity 🎨
Community and Collaboration 📍
Family and Personal Life 👪
Financial Security and Stability 💰
Reputation and Personal Commitment 🪞
I was surprised by “arts and creativity” and “financial security and stability” rising to the top. I know those things are important to me, but to be considered *the* values took me aback at first, and then started to make sense after I claimed them. Once these came together and I could step back and think about why they were there and why they came forward when others fell back, I really started to understand (and frankly, accept more deeply) who I am.
Your life guide 🗺️
It’s simple but profound (truly) to do a values exercise. Of course, you can do something like this on your own, but the coach experience was best for me at this stage in my life. I needed someone to discuss them with and pressure test why I chose what I chose. I needed help getting out of my own head and out of my own way. Now, I look at everything in my life, including the choices I make or don’t make, through these values. If something doesn’t feel right, it’s usually because something in my values is bent or broken. I use them to make decisions about my precious time. I use them as buckets to ensure they are being filled somehow. They connected to my happiness, and if they aren’t being tended to or considered, it’s a sure recipe for depression. Now, I think of them as a guide to my life.
I think we’ve all heard those stories about people who have everything they ever wanted, but they aren’t happy. That is literally my worst nightmare. I think that happens when your values aren’t understood. It’s so easy to just blow in the wind, and there is definitely a time and place for that, too (hello, grief), but when you wake up one day and realize you have everything in your possession except for happiness and joy, go back to your values. Where are they represented? And if you don’t have everything you want in your possession, now is as good a time as any to understand them and make sure what you want is actually what you want.
Yours filling her creativity cup up just a bit,
Cassie
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