How to Identify and Align your life with Your Core Values

We all want to live a life that is feels meaningful and purposeful to us and this can be easier said than done! By identifying your core values and aligning your life with them is an important gift to give yourself – the gift of inner peace and a more meaningful purposeful life. 

What do I mean by values and core values and why are they important? 

Our value systems were developed as we moved through childhood into adulthood and were strongly influenced by our earliest caregivers including society, culture and other systems we belonged too. So, we all have a fairly good idea of what probably is important to us so things like ‘Health’, ‘Integrity’, ‘Family’, ‘Balance’, ‘Respect’ and ‘Fun’ might jump out at us as being important and that we ‘value’! However, your core values are those key beliefs and attitudes that drive and direct your life with the experts suggesting that we each have between 3 and 6 core values. They are at the root of what you stand for and stand against and are a vital part of what makes you, You! Your core values are the core principles and inner compass that you live by - permeating all aspects of your life - becoming your code of conduct. They direct our behaviours, feelings, actions and decisions and when we honour them our lives feel fulfilled and meaningful. When we are not in alignment with these core values, we feel it deep inside -that edgy anxious unfulfilled feeling that we are lacking direction and connection to our ‘Why’. 

Scientific research tells us that the more we live our lives in alignment with our core values, we enjoy greater happiness, wellbeing, psychological resilience and long-term life satisfaction. 

So, how do we find out what our core values are? 

Firstly, we discover our core values rather than create them and it can be easy to get lost in speculation and in what we think they should be. This work is ideally conducted with a coach, but you can certainly make a good shot at it yourself by completing the below exercise. 

Through quiet reflection ask yourself some key questions allow the answers to emerge. 

• What is really important to me deep down. 
• What is deeply important to me about the type of life I want to live? 
• What is deeply important to me about the people in my life? 
• What is deeply important to me about the work that I do? 

Alternatively, treat yourself to the ‘Identify & Align with Your Core Values‘ Toolkit (including a list of 230 plus values!). This complete toolkit includes a Workbook and a Tutorial on how to identify and align your life with your core value. 

Book a discovery call to find out how I can help you identify, align with and integrate your core values into your personal and professional life.