What is important to you?
Defining what drives you, what you consider important and a value will ultimately set the landscape for your intentionality and priorities. Depending on what these are, will define your paths and behaviours surrounding your pursuits and the many challenges and sacrifices needed to get there.
These are the top five items that, ultimately, if forced to choose, you would give your all to preserve and protect at the expense of all others.
Most people never invest the time, space or courage it takes to confront and really answer this question. We just assume we know. By default, we form answers of convenience – whatever serves us best in any given situation. Failure to nail down what matters most to you will continue to waste precious energy, money and opportunity. You will spend resources on things of lesser importance at the expense of things that really matter.
Deciding what matters most is both difficult and freeing. Aligning yourself between where you buy real estate and your selections is at the heart and soul of living richly.
Be honest, take your time and really think about your top 5. You may be surprised at your list.
You’ve just completed the first step in identifying your values and drivers, but only when you delve further into each selection do you begin to really understand how to live in alignment with your values.
From the five selections, what are the reasons as to why you chose them? Even if the reasons are intensely private, take a moment to think back on the underlying reasons for your choices. What values do your answers now reflect?
Looking at your daily life and the multitude of choices you make, what ways and to what extent do you invest in each of your five selected priorities? Are there any discrepancies between what you believe to be important and how you actually live? Are you living and making decisions as a complement to your values or do your actions go against them? What steps can you take to do better, to live with purpose and towards your most important drivers and values?
Think about the adjustments you need to make to be in alignment, from behaviour to opinions and general lifestyle, to what do you need to do to stay on the path.
Defining Your Values
The initials before the value represent the four types or categories of selection:
A – Achievement-oriented: these values represent things people typically strive for, achieve, earn or accomplish.
E – Extrinsic, or external: these values represent things external to you that you value or that contribute to your sense of significance.
I – Intrinsic, or internal: these values represent those things that you experience internally, or within yourself.
R – Relational: these values represent facets of relationships and/or interactions with other people.