15 Values: Your Roadmap

CHAPTER 15

Values: Your Roadmap

If you’ve made it to Chapter 15, you’ve successfully been checking off habits from your “these things make me feel like shit” list. By now, you might be wondering, “What can I do to make sure I don’t fall back into these behaviors again?” When we’re so used to behaving in default mode and doing things like hiding, perfecting, pleasing, blaming, and controlling, how do we know what we need to do to feel better and feel proud of the women we are? You’ve read about many tools in each of these chapters, but I could not close out this book without diving into something very important—knowing and honoring your values.

Values might not sound sexy, so if you’re tempted to skip this chapter, listen up—values are the shit! When you know your values, you’re clear on what’s important about the way you live your life. Think of them as your North Star, your compass, or your roadmap. You like to know where you’re going and what it looks like, right? Good, then we’re on the same page, because that’s exactly what your values will tell you.

This chapter is so important because it will show you how to name your values and how to identify which choices and behaviors are honoring them. You’ll also be able to identify the times when you get in trouble and move away from those choices. Finally, you’ll be able to pick out the people you can turn to for support to help you get back on track. Why? Because all of this work doesn’t matter if you aren’t clear on who you are, what you’re after, and what it looks like on a day-to-day basis.

This entire book has been about habits like control, perfectionism, isolation, and people pleasing, correct? Here’s the tie-in: When you’re engaging in those behaviors, you’re NOT honoring your values. It’s that simple. I know for sure that you don’t have a value of killing yourself in the name of perfection, or of saying yes all the time to crap you don’t want to do. It’s important not to live your life blaming everyone and their mother (and your mother) instead of taking responsibility for what’s yours. Your values are what make you feel good about you.

But what if you don’t know what yours are? Don’t panic; that’s what we’re here to figure out.

FINDING YOUR VALUES

I find that people who have no idea what their values are have often asked themselves the question, “What the hell is wrong with me?” Here’s the answer—there’s nothing wrong with you. Put simply, you just don’t know what your values are.

Over the years I have discovered some commonalities while doing values work with women. It can be tricky to come up with a list of your values—especially if this is the first time you’ve heard of their importance. I’ll give you some examples of common values, but first I’d like you to do some thinking to help you get clear on what your personal values might be.

Ask yourself these two crucial questions and feel free to journal about them:

•What’s important to you?

•What is important about the way you live your life?

For example, if it is important that you connect with others on a deep level consistently (even if it’s sometimes uncomfortable), then you likely value connection. Or, do you have a spiritual devotion practice (that you either have or haven’t been observing lately)? If so, you likely have a value of faith or spirituality. Is it important for you to get to know yourself on a deeper level and strive to be a better person? If so, then, you might have a value of personal growth.

Another way to pinpoint your values is an exercise called the “peak experience.” Think about a time in your life when you felt confident in your decisions and proud of who you were—even if it was just for a short amount of time. What were you doing? What was behind your decisions and behaviors? What part of yourself did you tap into during that that experience?

Here’s another example. Maybe a few years back you were consistently exercising—going on trail runs, making healthy food choices, and as a result, feeling good physically. The values that you pull from this are physical health and honoring your body. You might also want to explore your peak experience and look for other, not-so-obvious values that hide there. A hidden value here might be nature. Maybe you feel the most grounded when you spend time outdoors, or perhaps you find solitude good for your soul. Not the I’m-going-to-hide-out-all-the-time type of solitude, but experiencing the quietness of nature to refresh your spirit and make you feel alive.

An important point I want to make is that you can have a value that you aren’t honoring right now. It can still be important to you and how you live your life, but maybe you haven’t had the tools, courage, or consciousness to honor it. Let’s call these “aspirational values.” What’s important here is to watch out for your inner critic, who might have a tendency to step in and make comments about whether you’re honoring your values or not. Maybe all your values are aspirational values, which is fine! Maybe you have spirituality on lockdown most of the time, but courage and connection are lacking. The whole point of this chapter is to figure out what yours are so that you can start practicing them. Minding the gap between your aspired values and your real life is what most of the work consists of.

Digging In

To help you on your journey to finding your values, here are some common values:

Courage Personal growth Balance Authenticity Creativity Fun/Humor Faith/Spirituality Trust Being of service/Giving Back Freedom Integrity/Honesty Intuition Physical health Adventure Safety Justice

It’s perfectly fine if you take the above list and run with it. These values are the most common for a reason.

Quick note: When you’re making this list, try to stay away from actual activities or objects. If you have on your list “classic novels” and you think that’s your value, think about what reading them actually brings you. Is it creativity you really crave? Do you long for the peace and solitude you feel while reading? In this work, it’s not the thing that’s important to you, but the feeling it brings you.

Keep in mind the values you have might vary from one specific area of your life to another. For instance, the most important values in my life overall are courage, intuition, and integrity. However, for my business, they are leadership, impact, and service. If you really get into this exercise, you might have a short list for parenting, your career, and your partnership as well. Try not to feel overwhelmed by this; if you want to keep it broad, focused on your life overall, that’s great! I would never expect you to walk around overly conscious of minding the values gap all the time. You don’t need to be constantly thinking about what specific part of your life you’re working on. This is simply a way to take inventory of how you’re showing up in your life and look at areas you need to work on.

Getting Clear

Since I know many of my dear readers may struggle with perfectionism and worrying what other people think, this last exercise will help you figure out if your values are actually yours. If they’re not yours, perhaps you chose them because you think you should be a certain way.

Here’s something imperative about your values—they belong to you and only you. They are not up for judgment, voting, or ridicule from others. Ever. Be careful if you think, “Being of service sounds like it should be important to me. I’ll choose that.” When really, right now, that doesn’t feel good to you. That’s okay. Don’t make this list a résumé showing off your honorable virtues. No one is looking over your shoulder and critiquing you.

Values change over time—they evolve just as life does, so stay open. Just because something isn’t important to you now doesn’t mean it won’t be important later.

DEFINING VALUES IN REAL LIFE

Just like naming a baby, naming our values is only part of the solution. In this section, we learn to do the real work—raising and taking care of our children (and our values). Now, let’s delve into identifying the behaviors that honor our values (and please, for the love of self-help, don’t skip this part.) It’s not enough to name your values, but knowing what they look like in your true life is where you’ll see the real results you want that lead to your happiness.

•Make a list of your top two to three values. Your top values are the ones that will give you direction when you need it the most. When you’re faced with a tough decision or when the bottom drops out, you’re going to need to rely on something inside you. These are your values. I’ve given some examples below, so don’t panic if you can’t narrow your list.

•Make a list of the behaviors that honor your top two to three values. Think of the behaviors that honor your values as the building blocks that make up the path of your values.

Let’s start with courage as the first example. (Notice that a few of the behaviors are similar from one value to another.)

I’m starting with this one because I’m 99.9 percent sure that if you’re reading this book, you have a value of courage. Maya Angelou said, “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because, without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” As I’ve been telling you ad nauseum, it’s probably easier for you to keep isolating, numbing, people pleasing, or perfecting. Courage, however, is hard, but most likely the path you’d rather be on.

Here we go:

Value: Courage

What does courage look like to you?

•Setting boundaries (i.e., having tough conversations).

•Asking for help when needed.

•Sharing your story with someone you trust.

•Stepping into vulnerability even though you’re afraid.

Value: Spirituality/Faith

What do spirituality and/or faith look like to you?

•Calling on your higher power regularly.

•Practicing gratitude.

•Practicing mindfulness (i.e., listening to your intuition).

•Meditating.

•Going to church.

Value: Authenticity

What does authenticity look like to you?

•Speaking your truth (i.e., standing up for yourself).

•Knowing when you are chasing perfection or people pleasing and practice honoring yourself first.

•Taking responsibility for your mistakes and cleaning up any “messes.”

•Showing up as your imperfect self.

Feel free to use the list and the examples I’ve made, or rewrite the examples in your own words. It might also be helpful to use specific situations from your life in which you’ve honored each value—or even chosen not to honor them. This will help you see where you could improve.

You see, sometimes (okay, many times) honoring your values is the uncomfortable thing to do. We’re used to doing things from a place of fear: hoping we’ll be liked, hoping things will run smoothly, and hoping we can dodge some bullets. My hope for you is that you are proud of the person you see in the mirror, that after doing the uncomfortable thing and honoring the person you are, you’re able to feel good about the decision you made.

Here’s an example from one of my clients, Amanda. She was unhappy with how things were being managed at the company where she worked. It wasn’t just poor management—there were things going on that were unfair, and she felt she (and her coworkers) were being manipulated. She tried to deal with it, but as the months went by, she felt more angry and resentful and found herself complaining about work often. In a nutshell, she was feeling like shit about her job because her values were being stepped on. As time went on, she realized she had three choices:

1. Do nothing, and things would continue as they were and likely get worse. She would continue to feel angry at work.

2. Do nothing, say nothing, and just quit her job. Make a clean break.

3. Speak up about what was happening, ask for things to change, and if they didn’t change, then make a decision about whether to stay or not.

She agonized over what to do for weeks. Finally, she decided on choice number three. She got very clear on what she wanted to say to her managers ahead of time, what she needed to call out, and what she was asking for. She asked for a meeting at work and said what she needed to say with courage. Was she afraid? Yes, very. Was she proud of herself as she walked away from that conversation? Yes. They tried to make a compromise, which didn’t feel good to Amanda, so she made the decision to leave.

I want to make it very clear that I’m not encouraging you to hastily voice your demands in the name of authenticity or quit your job in the name of courage. It’s not about zero fucks given. Amanda spent a lot of time deciding how to communicate her concerns with grace, honesty, and kindness, as well as knowing her intention was to stand up for what she believed in from a place of integrity. She wasn’t putting all her success on the outcome of the conversation. That’s not what honoring your values is about. It’s not about winning or kicking ass all the time. It’s about knowing what’s important to you and why, as well as what it means to take action on your values. All in order for you to feel good about who you are and proud of how you’re behaving.

LOOKING FOR RED FLAGS

At this point, you’re probably noticing some of the habits and behaviors you engage in that show up as red flags, letting you know you’re out of alignment with your values. In other words, I want you to be aware of the times when you make decisions from a place that doesn’t feel good. Most times, this comes from a place of fear.

Two examples: You say yes to things you don’t want to do—maybe you’ve walked away from your values of courage and authenticity. Or, you find yourself gossiping about someone you know—maybe you’ve walked away from your values of integrity and kindness.

A more personal example comes from a time when I did this work myself. I wrote down my red flags and noticed they showed up when I felt resentful, lashed out, or acted passive-aggressively. Now when I do this, I know I’m not standing in the value I have around courage. It means I’m not having a conversation with someone I need to, or I’m not taking responsibility somewhere, which goes against my value of authenticity. So, what are your red flags? What are you doing, feeling, or thinking when you’ve fallen away from your values?

GET YOUR MANTRA AND MANIFESTO ON

The last tool is to come up with a mantra and manifesto that helps you remember your values. We’ve used the mantra before, and a manifesto is a published verbal declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer. In other words, you affirm what’s important to you (best used with a mic drop, if the moment is right). But in all seriousness, the manifesto states your intentions, what you believe in, as well as your vision.

You can use your mantra or manifesto as something you say to yourself when things get slippery. You can say them while you’re exercising, doing yoga, vacuuming, or whatever! I’ve even had some clients pair them up with body movements like sun salutations. But mostly they are perfect for you when you find yourself standing in a place where you have a choice—use one of the hiding out behaviors you’re used to, or step into your values behavior.

Some examples of mantras are:

I stand in courage; I stand in faith.

I am love; I am wisdom.

Courage, Faith, Love. (This could just be naming your values and repeating them.)

My mind and my body know what’s important to me.

There’s really no right or wrong way to do it. All I want is for it to feel good to you, inspire you, and make it clear what your values are.

In terms of your manifesto, a simple way to create one is to finish the following sentence prompts:

I believe in . . .

In my heart of hearts, I . . .

I am passionate about . . .

Here’s what I know for sure . . .

I stand for . . .

I love . . .

I am on this Earth to . . .

I will love myself by . . .

I assure you with everything in my being that if you do these exercises and are able to recognize not only what your values are but also what they mean to you, you’ll be well on your way to a richer, fuller life. Values are one of the many antidotes to feeling like shit. Once you know them, you can allow them to pave the way for you.