Do Your Goals Align with your Core Values?
- Leah Scott and Justin Andrade
- Jul 5, 2019
- 3 min read
Starting a new goal is exciting.
Whether you are trying to enhance your professional skills, learn an instrument, or read a book this month, humans by nature thrive on new experiences.
Before you dive head first into a goal though, you want to ensure that goal is aligned with your core values.
What are these you may ask?
Core values are what you believe.
They are your fundamental beliefs and represent your highest priorities. When you know what you value, you can live in accordance with these values, leading to greater fulfillment. When you don’t know or are unaware of your values, you violate them every day. This creates internal tension and this tension triggers destructive habits and regressive behavior.
Understanding your own core values will help you to define and achieve your goals. Your core values will also assist in keeping you motivated. Some examples of personal core values:
Honesty
Gratitude
Compassion
Respect
Trust
Fairness
Good Health
Love
Productivity
Present
Ambition
Freedom
Friendship
Service
Commitment
Sharing
Energy
Family
Courage
Relationships,
What's your core values? We gave plenty of samples to get you thinking.
Now, let’s think about how these values play out in your own daily life.
For example, if you wrote down “Good Health” as a core value, you may define health in your personal life as “going to the gym 4 days a week”, or “eating clean”.
Write down specific examples of how each of your core values apply to you.
Values defined:
Ex. Good Health = eating clean or Gratitude = being thankful each day for my home, family, etc.
Next, it’s time for us to do some self-introspection. What do you do today that is not aligned with the core values you have listed above?
For example, if you wrote down commitment, regularly cancelling meet-ups with your friends does not fit in with your core value of commitment.
If you wrote down adventure, when is the last time that you have done something adventurous (met someone new, gone on a trip, etc.)?
Reviewing each of these values against your daily actions will help you to understand which values are aligned with your current behaviors as well as areas you can improve upon to better align your behaviors with your core values.
Some of your behaviors that can be improved upon in order to better align with your core values.
By completing the above exercises, you should now have a sense of what matters most to you and what you could be doing to ensure your behaviors are in alignment with your values.
Trust us, this exercise will go a long way in helping you to complete any goals you have and ensuring that your behaviors and values align accordingly.
It’s Action Time!
Post your values where you can review them daily. Whenever you feel you are deviating from these values refer to the list you made above, center yourself, and get back to tackling those goals!
With Love & Kindness,
Justin & Leah
Leah Scott and Justin Andrade founded Upgrade Your Joy. A program that educates you on how to bring more joy and wellness into your relationships through small daily actions. They live in Carlsbad, CA with their 3 boys and are enjoying life and having fun one day at a time.
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