Discover Your Values

Aristotle believed there were a set of core values that should manifest themselves in the behavior of all human beings.  These were courage, honesty, friendliness, wittiness, rationality in judgement, mutually beneficial friendships and the pursuit of knowledge and truth. Similarly, Benjamin Franklin developed a system for living his core values as a young man in seeking moral perfection.  He developed a list of thirteen virtues he wanted to follow:

1. Temperance - Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. Silence - Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order - Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution - Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality - Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
6. Industry - Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off al unnecessary actions.
7. Sincerity - Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice - Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. Moderation - Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness - Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.
11. Tranquility - Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity - Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
13. Humility - Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Identifying Your Values

What do you value?  Is it friendship, integrity, physical health, compassion, supernatural power, flexibility, economic freedom, intimacy with God?  There are thousands of values but, most likely, you are currently living your life according to about 5-8 core values.

Take a moment and write down 5 things that you value.  Sometimes it is difficult to figure out what your values are, so try the following exercise:

One way to discover your own values is to examine where you spend your time over the course of a week, and then ask yourself why you spend your time there.

For example (168 hours in a week):

40 hours - work as Executive Assistant - Why? Economic Freedom
3 hours - church - Why? Friendship/Community & Intimacy with God
10 hours - worship/prayer/meditation - Why? Intimacy with God
8 - 10 hours - social activities with friends - Why? Friendship/Community
10 - 12 hours - reading (fiction, and personal development) - Why? Personal Development, Growth, Entertainment
8 hours - exercise - Why? Physical Health
50 hours - sleep - Why? Physical Health
5 hours - class - Why? Personal Development
~ 50 hours - miscellaneous tasks (i.e. getting ready for day, driving, cooking, eating)

Alternatively you could ask yourself how you spend your money, reflecting on the saying "You put your money where your heart is."  Where do you invest your time, energy, and money?  By asking yourself WHY you invest in such a way will give you insight as to what you truly value.

Now that you have your values listed in front of you, reflect on what this list means in your life? These are the foundation of your life.  It is the core driving force behind everything you do.  You make decisions in your life based on this list.  You may not be aware that you make decisions based on this list but you do.  Look at your life, everything that you have created has been built upon these values.

When we make decisions that are not based on our values, we either don't achieve the outcome of a decision or we feel intuitively not right.  Some of the time we try and ignore or suppress this feeling, going into denial.  When we do this, we feel out of alignment and it feels like the very foundation of who we are starts to shake.  We are now on rocky ground and the energy around what we do is weak and we feel very uncertain.

To live in a strong supported way we must live by our values.  You cannot have a house without a foundation.  If you think of your values as the core of who you are sitting deep within you, then your thoughts are the products of these values.  Your values rise up into thoughts and you then play out these thoughts through your actions.  This is sometimes done consciously and sometimes subconsciously.  To build a stronger foundation it is really important that you know what your foundation is built on.  Know your values, dig deep within you to uncover them if they don't appear easily.  Think about your actions, the life you are living, the decisions you make to get to where you are.  What guiding principles do you live by that create the choices you make?

__________
References:
(1) Values & Life Purpose Module, International Coaching Academy 2012.
(2) Benjamin Franklin's Thirteen Virtues, Bigg Success.