Upsize Your Life Through Value Clarity

Your values are the things that you believe are important in the way you live and work.

Values exist, whether you recognize them or not. Life can be much easier when you acknowledge your values – and when you make plans and decisions that honor them.

If you value family, but you have to work 70-hour weeks in your job, will you feel internal stress and conflict? And if you don't value competition, and you work in a highly competitive sales environment, are you likely to be satisfied with your job?

In these types of situations, understanding your values can really help. When you know your own values, you can use them to make decisions about how to live your life, and you can answer questions like these:

• What job should I pursue?
• Should I accept this promotion?
• Should I start my own business?
• Should I compromise, or be firm with my position?
• Should I follow tradition, or travel down a new path?

So, take the time to understand the real priorities in your life, and you'll be able to determine the best direction for you and your

Women who jotted down their values (from religion to relationships to politics) then wrote about the one that was most important to them lost more weight, and had smaller waist circumferences and lower BMIs four months later than women who were also trying to downsize but didn't spend time focusing on their values. Thinking about what matters to us may help us feel more in control of our habits and better about ourselves overall, making it less likely that we'll reach for food when we need an emotional pick-me-up.

Defining Your Values

When you define your personal values, you discover what's truly important to you. A good way of starting to do this is to look back on your life – to identify when you felt really good, and really confident that you were making good choices.

Step 1: Identify the times when you were happiest

Find examples from both your career and personal life. This will ensure some balance in your answers.

• What were you doing?
• Were you with other people? Who?
• What other factors contributed to your happiness?
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Step 2: Identify the times when you were most proud

Use examples from your career and personal life.

• Why were you proud?
• Did other people share your pride? Who?
• What other factors contributed to your feelings of pride?

Step 3: Identify the times when you were most fulfilled and satisfied

Again, use both work and personal examples.

• What need or desire was fulfilled?
• How and why did the experience give your life meaning?
• What other factors contributed to your feelings of fulfillment?

Step 4: Determine your top values, based on your experiences of happiness, pride, and fulfillment

Why is each experience truly important and memorable? Use the following list of common personal values to help you get started – and aim for about 10 top values. (As you work through, you may find that some of these naturally combine. For instance, if you value philanthropy, community, and generosity, you might say that service to others is one of your top values.)

Accountability Accuracy Achievement Adventurousness Altruism Ambition Assertiveness Balance Being the best Belonging Boldness Calmness Carefulness Challenge Cheerfulness Clear-mindedness Commitment Community Compassion Competitiveness Consistency Contentment Continuous Improvement Contribution Control Cooperation Correctness Courtesy Creativity Curiosity Decisiveness Democraticness Dependability Determination Devoutness Diligence Discipline Discretion Diversity Dynamism Economy Effectiveness Efficiency Elegance Empathy Enjoyment Enthusiasm Equality

Excellence Excitement Expertise Exploration Expressiveness Fairness Faith Family-orientedness Fidelity Fitness Fluency Focus Freedom Fun Generosity Goodness Grace Growth Happiness Hard Work Health Helping Society Holiness Honesty Honor Humility Independence Ingenuity Inner Harmony Inquisitiveness Insightfulness Intelligence Intellectual Status Intuition Joy Justice Leadership Legacy Love Loyalty Making a difference Mastery Merit Obedience Openness Order Originality Patriotism

Perfection Piety Positivity Practicality Preparedness Professionalism Prudence Quality-orientation Reliability Resourcefulness Restraint Results-oriented Rigor Security Self-actualization Self-control Selflessness Self-reliance Sensitivity Serenity Service Shrewdness Simplicity Soundness Speed Spontaneity Stability Strategic Strength Structure Success Support Teamwork Temperance Thankfulness Thoroughness Thoughtfulness Timeliness Tolerance Traditionalism Trustworthiness Truth-seeking Understanding Uniqueness Unity Usefulness Vision Vitality

Step 5: Prioritize your top values

This step is probably the most difficult, because you'll have to look deep inside yourself. It's also the most important step, because, when making a decision, you'll have to choose between solutions that may satisfy different values. This is when you must know which value is more important to you.

• Write down your top values, not in any particular order.
• Look at the first two values and ask yourself, "If I could satisfy only one of these, which would I choose?" It might help to visualize a situation in which you would have to make that choice. For example, if you compare the values of service and stability, imagine that you must decide whether to sell your house and move to another country to do valuable foreign aid work, or keep your house and volunteer to do charity work closer to home.
• Keep working through the list, by comparing each value with each other value, until your list is in the correct order.

Step 6: Reaffirm your values

Check your top-priority values, and make sure they fit with your life and your vision for yourself.

• Do these values make you feel good about yourself?
• Are you proud of your top three values?
• Would you be comfortable and proud to tell your values to people you respect and admire?
• Do these values represent things you would support, even if your choice isn't popular, and it puts you in the minority?

When you consider your values in decision making, you can be sure to keep your sense of integrity and what you know is right, and approach decisions with confidence and clarity. You'll also know that what you're doing is best for your current and future happiness and satisfaction.

Some of life's decisions are really about determining what you value most. When many options seem reasonable, it's helpful and comforting to rely on your values – and use them as a strong guiding force to point you in the right direction.

Action Exercises

 
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:

First, clarify your core beliefs and your unifying principles. Write them down and compare your life today with the values that are really important to you. How are you doing?

Second, organize your values in order of their importance to you. Which of your values is most important? Which is second? And so on. Do your current choices reflect this order of values?

Test your values by looking at the decisions they produce. This test will work in either real or imagined decision-making situations. Say you value independence, and you're considering moving in with your significant other. What sorts of options are available to you, given your value? If you value rest and spontaneity, but you work a job that requires 70-hour weeks, how will you avoid stress and internal conflict? In these types of situations, understanding your values can really help make creative decisions that reflect your own self-care.

Be aware that you will be able to see your value in action most powerfully while making a real decision. Sometimes we are so enamored with a particular value that we imagine it will always lead us to the best decisions when this is not necessarily the case.