Are You Being True To Your Values in the Work that You Do?

If you haven’t been feeling that your career is a true expression of you and you’ve been finding less joy in what you are doing every day, please read on to see to my reaction when I was going through an unfulfilling time in my own career.

I worked mostly in marketing the first 15 years of my career. Although I do enjoy marketing very much, it really doesn’t fuel me. To me, helping companies get more leads and sales feels good, but it doesn’t nourish my soul. It isn’t a reflection of who I truly am at a core level. It’s not something I can do all day long and enjoy. On the other hand, when I coach, I don’t see the hours go by. The joy of helping people live more fulfilling lives and see them make transformative shifts is so rewarding! I actually have to force myself to stop working…

Wouldn’t you love a career or business where you felt you actually had to force yourself to stop working? The only way to do this is by being true to who you really are.

What works for me is ensuring my life purpose, my values and my inner leader are all aligned with the work that I do. I actually have all three of these written on a postcard that I keep beside my bed. I look at them every morning to ensure everything that I am doing, being and creating is in line with the direction that I am choosing to move towards. You already have the exercises on how to create your life purpose. In this article, we’ll look at how to determine your most important values and see if they are being incorporated into the work that you do.  And in the next article, we’ll look at how to connect with your inner leader, (the part of you that is clear and knowing), to ensure that all parts of you are moving towards the fullest expression of yourself. So what are your main values? We all have values…but which ones really drive you?

Here are some exercises I learned in my training from the Coaches Training Institute:

Exercise #1
Whom do you most admire? Name 3 to 5 people. It could be a movie star, an athlete, a family member…

Write down what you admire most about them.

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Exercise #2
What makes you angry, frustrated or upset?

This often indicates something contrary to a high value. For instance, if you hate being stuck in traffic every day to the point where it makes you absolutely crazy…it makes you feel trapped…if you were to flip this value around, perhaps what your real value is, is a value for freedom.

Name some things that make you really angry and then look at what is on the other side of that value.

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Exercise #3
Most of us can easily come up with a long list of values…how do you decide the ones you should base your decisions on? Since there are so many things you can value, maybe they are not all created equal for each person. Here is a question you can ask yourself to help narrow down your list of values to the ones that are most important to you.

If you were to take 6-10 values with you into a war-torn country, which ones would you absolutely have to have.

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Now that you have completed the three exercises, see which values come up repeatedly. Choose your top 6-8 values.

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Looking at your values, evaluate how you are honouring them on a scale of 1 to 10. One is not at all, and 10, being complete all the time.

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Knowing your values helps provide you with direction and clarity.

Looking at the top values you came up with, ask yourself, “Am I honouring these in the work that I do?”

If you are…then CONGRATS!!

If you are not…you might want to ask yourself, “In terms of my career, what else is possible?”

When you honour your values, you honour yourself and the true purpose of your life.  Here’s to each of us being true to our values and doing what we are truly meant to do!