The first thing I do with my clients when they walk through the door in our first session is that I ask them to stand up for the exercise. I want you to dare to dream. I want you to close your eyes. And while you do that I would like you to record yourself as you go through this exercise…

 

These are words spoken by Sue of AllBright in her video on how to find your values. So the idea of standing, does have a lot of benefits including bypassing limiting beliefs, but that is not what I want to dwell on today. I want to talk about knowing our values. You may now wonder, “Why would anyone go through all that trouble?”

A lot of us go through life not knowing our highest values, we don’t even know what it means having them.

The big question would then be, Why the fuss?

Back in my early 20s life was cool and exciting, like it is for many of us in that age. Opportunities presented themselves and it was fun, kind of magnetic, they just came.

My sister and I ended up working together in the same spa. A very fine 5 star spa, it was one of the few back in those days in the whole city. But then something happened between our boss and my sister, forcing my sister to stand up for herself, she then resigned with immediate effect. I followed suit. I resigned too, impulsively, there and then. It was a wrap.

Our boss was totally bewildered. He apologised and asked us back to reinstate us. After several days we all met at the HR’s office. What was interesting was his only question to me, “Why did you also resign?”

Really funny!

For me I suppose I knew where I stood. My thoughts must have been, if you can do that to someone else, more so my sister, then it won’t be long before I’m next.

When you are young, you are hyper and stand for yourself knowing that more opportunities will present themselves, it is the least of your worries, no a hint of fear. Nothing keeps you in a place you stopped connecting with in terms of your values.

Values as a game changer.

They are what make us tick. A value is something that brings you joy and satisfaction, and is something that’s extremely important to you e.g. connectivity, peace, independence, and/or freedom, travel, adventure the list goes on and on.

Value here is not in reference to societal moral compass or any for that, it is not in the sense of right or wrong, good or bad per se. When we are living a life that is honouring our values, we feel a real sense of fulfilment. This is where we attain our authentic happiness, we are fully alive and most fully ourselves. Nirvana!

Conversely, when we are not living according to our highest values, there’s an inner sense of ‘disharmony’ a ‘dissonance’ of some sort. We are not coherent. This is why so many of us are unhappy and lack motivation at work, or at home or just about life in general. We lose the ability to stay true to our values and vision.

Most certainly in the long run constantly being incoherent lead to anxiety, depression, anger and all sorts of physical illnesses.

An example, if your value is improving other people’s lives, contributing, and serving then, consider a possible career in say teaching as that will be in alignment with those values.

Exercise

So now, I want you to literally stand up, close your eyes, and dare to dream. Envision your dream life, go into so much details as possible e.g You are all dressed up in your best outfit and are giving a speech at a TedTalk. The hall is full to the brim (specify age, gender, locality) , you travelled all the way, for miles, to the venue in London and had a good night rest in the nearest 5 star hotel…

Go ahead and dream. The dream will reveal to you your core values. From the example above it, you may figure out that you love to share and contribute to the world, that you value freedom, travelling, adventure, etc.

Dream and dream big.

Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live-Margaret Fuller.

It’s pretty damn hard to bring your uniqueness into actual being if you’re always doing the same things as a lot of other people- Brendan Francis.

Goodluck.

 

©nicollehanselmann 2020

 

Ref: Supercharge Your Career with AllBright.

Photo credit pexel.com