The Importance of Defining Your Core Values

Not having your core values defined is like being on a boat in the middle of the ocean with a dead engine and a broken compass. You’re technically fine because you’re alive and stocked with enough food, water, and sunscreen to stay that way, but instead of actively choosing which direction you want to go to, you remain at the mercy of the current and wind, going wherever the tide chooses to take you. According to Ethics Unwrapped, values are “individual beliefs that motivate people to act one way or another”. They essentially denote the degree of importance something holds to a person (whether it be a literal thing, a quality, or a behavior) and ultimately help us determine which actions we should take and how we should operate in our day-to-day lives.

How can you know where you want to go if you only have a vague sense of what you like? Of what you value? Of what’s important to you? In order to make informed, aligned decisions and assess how you actually feel about everything from your career to your friendships to your partnerships or to potential partnerships, you need to first figure out what really, truly matters to you. You need to figure out your values.

It’s pretty wild that there isn’t more of an emphasis placed on defining our values as children or adults, because not knowing what they are can have us driving blind if not straight into situations that are entirely misaligned. If you never come to the concrete realization that you place a high value on creative freedom in your profession, for example, you could accept a job offer from a company that’s sterile and unimaginative because you don’t know any better. If you fail to determine the value you place on open-mindedness, personal growth, or empathy, you could waste valuable time trying to make friendships or relationships work people who don’t value the same and never will. with dating someone closed off, cold, and unfeeling without realizing what exactly is off.

Simply put, if you only have a vague sense of what your personal values and professional values really are, you’ll be far more likely to enter into, or remain in, situations where you don’t belong. You’ll likely know something is off in situations where you’re out of alignment, but you won’t be able to put your finger on exactly what that something is because you literally don’t know. Your internal ‘compass’ will be broken in the sense that you won’t know what to move towards and what to move away from, because you haven’t taken the time to clarify the things that actually matters to you.

Once you do put in the work to get clear on your core values, you’ll be able to drastically improve your life in an abundance of ways. Below are just a few of the positive outcomes that can play out upon concretely defining what matters to you in both your personal and professional lives.

Outcomes of Defining Core Professional Values

1.      Increased job satisfaction and overall happiness

Career values can be split into two categories: intrinsic and extrinsic: Extrinsic values include tangible things like compensation, benefits, and hours. Intrinsic values speak to the sense of meaning and happiness you derive from the work you do, apart from the pay and bennies. While defining and meeting both types is important for job satisfaction, intrinsic values hold more weight long-term. Taking the time to define what’s important to you in your career and then assessing where you’re at today is an invaluable exercise to gain a real understanding of whether or not you need to make a change. You’ll be able to determine whether the job you have now lines up with what you really value in your work, and if it doesn’t, you’ll be armed with a recalibrated compass pointing you in the direction that’s both correct and aligned.

2.      Improved performance and passion

Once you define your core professional values and find a job that’s in alignment with them, clocking in each day will become something you look forward to rather than dread. Career alignment means doing what you love, and doing what you love means being fueled by passion and a greater motivation to kick ass. The end result? Wildly improved performance. Whereas not enjoying what you do makes it difficult to summon the motivation and discipline required to do it well, loving your job makes it easy tap into that wellspring of drive to crush it. Clarifying what you value will empower you to find a career that provides what you need to thrive, and ultimately allow you to shine as the results-delivering, ass-kicking employee/business owner you are.

3.      Greater joy, fulfillment, and contentment

When we enjoy what we do for a living, our performance improves - and little brings a greater sense of joy, fulfillment, or overall contentment than doing what we really love, really well. I don’t care if you’re type A, type B, or a cross between the two – delivering results, crushing goals, and making a positive impact feels good, right? Of course it does. And when your job is in alignment with what you value, you won’t be able to help but do all those things and more. You won’t be able to help but perform at the top of your game because you won’t be able to help the sense of passionate you feel for work that’s meaningful to you. And when you crush it, you won’t be able to help but feel a high sense fulfillment, which will then further increase your job satisfaction by default. It’s the good kind of vicious cycle - the self-sustaining ecosystem of passion, excitement, positive results, and fulfillment that happens when you align your career with your values.

Outcomes of Defining Core Personal Values

1.      Greater authenticity and clarity about what is and isn’t for you

Defining your core personal values will automatically empower you to live as the most authentic version of yourself and gravitate toward only those things or people in alignment with the real you. You’ll become clear and certain in the areas you were once vague and unsure, and have a greater sense of confidence in your convictions about the people, places, or things that are either a yes or a no for you. Defining your personal core values will provide the clarity necessary to effectively identify and filter out everything that doesn’t align with who you are, and put an end to the perpetual vacillation that comes with not knowing what’s important to you, what you stand for, and what you want from your relationships with others.

2.      Clearer boundaries and deal breakers

Defining your personal values helps significantly in both the creation and upholding of personal boundaries in friendships, relationships, and social settings. For example, knowing you highly value empathy will help you confidently name that as a deal breaker and determine any partner who’s cold and aloof as a mismatch. Knowing you greatly value independence in both friendships and romance will allow you to establish and uphold clear boundaries surrounding clingy or suffocating behavior. Knowing you highly value personal development will help you conclude whether the new person you’re dating is or isn’t right for you depending on how much they value the same. Figuring out what you really value in your personal life will help you see every area of it through clearer eyes and afford you a more fine-tuned understanding of the behaviors – and people – you do or do not want to entertain within it.

3.      You’ll gravitate away from the wrong people and move toward the right people who are meant for you

The end result of living more authentically and defining your relational boundaries and deal breakers is naturally gravitating away from those people who don’t align with them, and toward those who do. Whether it be friends or romantic partners, you’ll develop an increasingly adept sense of who’s for you and who isn’t, and move away from those who aren’t a match with less waffling and a greater sense of confidence. You’ll ultimately create better, more satisfying relationships that bring you a greater sense of joy, fulfillment, and happiness, because in being true to who you are, you attract those who are meant for you and repel those who never were. 

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There is literally only upside to clarifying your values both in your career and in your personal life. Doing so will help you create more joy, fulfillment, happiness, and overall satisfaction across the board because you’ll finally know what’s important to you and then line yourself up with people and positions that match. By getting introspective and becoming more informed on what you’re actually all about, you’ll also become more discriminating about who you surround yourself with and choose only those individuals or circumstances that support who you really are.

Clarify what it is you truly value, have the courage to make changes if your current circumstances don’t align, and watch the pieces effortlessly fall into place as you create your life with intention, rather than by accident.

All my love.