Knowing your values - why does it matter?

I love a good conversation about values! Let’s start by loosely defining values as ‘the qualities that define the person we are or aspire to be’.

In turn, it can therefore help us identify people we like to connect with, organisations we want to work for, what we don’t stand for, and so on.

In our daily lives, we can lose sight of our values, consciously or otherwise as we navigate external influences or even our own internal ones, like doubt or limiting self-talk, and we can feel like we end up in a fog!

Why values matter

I’m a big believer in paying attention to what really matters to you as it can help block out some of the ‘noise’ from so many things competing for our attention, and provide an anchor for us, both personally and professionally. There are no hard and fast rules for working out your values, but if you consider it to be a way of tuning in to what drives you, your passions and inspiration, and what you aspire to have more of in your life, that’s a pretty good place to start!

If you are an employee, chances are your employer, along with their mission and vision, has values published at least internally. Why? It’s an opportunity to share what’s important to the organisation, what kind of employer are they, and help you decide if you want to work for them. Tuning in to your own personal and professional values can be so helpful for us in a similar way – who do we want to attract or repel?

I like to periodically revisit my own values, and I thought I’d share them. As a small business owner, my personal and professional ones are pretty close together:

My business values

• Kindness: always! Life can be tough-going and we never know the full extent of someone’s troubles or inner turmoil. All my interactions with clients stem from a place of kindness, and that will never change. But kindness is also such an important value in my business because kindness to ourselves is often the part that can be lacking! Helping others treat themselves with more kindness is a significant part of what I do and stand for.

• Acceptance: because we need to recognise and understand what is before we can seek to change it. But also acceptance from the perspective of you are not broken and don’t need fixing. Some support and help may be hugely beneficial, but you are allowed to be uniquely you, with your preferences, strengths, quirks and values too!

• Courage – because we need courage to take action, to make changes we want for ourselves and be true to our values, whether that is saying no to something or someone or saying yes to something or someone! I’ve written previously about the importance of courage, you can read more about that here.

My personal values are very closely aligned with my business – after all I have chosen to have this career!

• Balance: trying to maintain a reasonable sense of balance is so important for me to avoid overwhelm, and it is something that comes up with most clients. As an active state, it’s not easy to maintain all the time, but keeping this value on my radar helps me identify when I’m veering too far off-balance and need to take remedial action!

• Purpose: again I am confident I am far from alone on this one! A sense of purpose is so crucial for me to keep my motivation of why I am doing what I do, why I care so much and to focus on what I am achieving through my choices.

• Self development: I enjoy learning now probably more than I ever did in my school years! My learning now is through choice and on specific areas of interest to me as a coach. I want to expand my knowledge on what I do, to help serve my clients better and for my own self-understanding, development and wellbeing.

But enough about mine, I’d love to hear from you!

- Do you know easily what your values are, personally and professionally?

- And are they being met or is there any conflict?

If you’re not sure where to start on understanding and determining your values, do drop me a line, I have a values exercise to follow and complete that you may find helpful as a starting point: kathryn@kbmindfulcoaching.com.

And if you’d like to talk more afterwards, you are very welcome to book in a complimentary clarity session with me here.