“Living by Our Values”
I’ve been hearing a lot about values recently. Teachers and speakers that I’ve been connecting with over the past few months keep highlighting the importance of: 1) knowing our values, and 2) being guided by them.
Initially it just pricked my curiosity, but as I started identifying my own values I also began seeing connections between them and the different areas of my life: Ah! A-ha!!
World Values Day
Then yesterday, I was browsing through my Twitter feed and what should pop up but a tweet about … WORLD VALUES DAY! This is an annual initiative which challenges individuals, schools, community groups and organisations around the world to do something, using hashtag #WorldValuesDay, to publicly demonstrate and celebrate their core values.
According to their website:
Values are the things that are important to us, the foundation of our lives.
They are what make us who we are. They are the compass guiding everything we do – our choices and our actions.
They are our motivators, our drivers, the passion in our hearts and the reason we do the things we do.
Examples of values
I personally found it helpful to hear first about other people’s values, in order to help me then clarify my own. If your own values aren’t clear, the examples below may steer you towards them.
- Adventure
- Appreciation
- Charity
- Communication
- Community
- Compassion
- Connection
- Creativity
- Education
- Ethics
- Faith
- Family
- Fitness
- Freedom
- Growth
- Health
- Heritage
- Home
- Honesty
- Innovation
- Intimacy
- Justice
- Loyalty
- Nature
- Open-mindedness
- Positivity
- Rationalism
- Recognition
- Spirituality
- Security
Values in the workplace
Allan Kleynhans, South African life and business coach, says that one way to quickly identify a core value is to pay attention to what gets you angry. Apparently, anger is a common response to having a core value challenged or compromised. I found this immediately illuminating!
It made me remember a job I had years ago, working for a company where I often felt ‘like a square peg in a round hole’. It was fairly evident that I didn’t really fit the company profile. Looking back, with my core values now in mind, I can more easily see why I didn’t fit in. My values around honesty, integrity, communication and kindness were a direct clash with the values and practices of my employer. I would often go to work feeling happy and positive but leave feeling irritable, frustrated and drained. I attribute this to being regularly put in a position where, in order to do my job, I would have to go against my core values. It was a very uncomfortable and unpleasant feeling. I have also heard Allan Kleynhans say that environment is everything. And my experience concurs: it is very hard to hold on to who you are when surrounded by who you are not.
What are your employer’s values and do they match or clash with yours?
Values in relationships
Beccy Mae-Rose, of RED Matchmaking, talks about ‘values-based dating’. When I heard her speak at a LOVEx event in September, she suggested we write a list of our values, rather than the attributes we seek in a partner. It struck me that this shifts the focus away from what we want to get from a partner, to what we want to share with them.
At another event in July, Jean-Pierre De Villiers and his wife, Julia Cameron De Villiers, spoke about the importance of getting to know your partner’s values as well as your own. They described how it is often the case that our core values develop from those things we didn’t get as a child. They shared how this applied to each of them and how, as a couple, understanding his need for freedom and her need for connection has led to a deeper understanding and easier communication in their relationship.
What are your partner’s values and do they match or clash with yours?
Example 1: Isaac
Reflecting on values has also allowed me to make better sense of my past relationships with men. The first man, whom I shall call Isaac, was someone I had a casual thing with many moons ago. I was clear I didn’t want anything more than that because there were aspects of his personality that concerned me. He would talk about what was going on for him at work, and I’d be struck by how his underhand dealings with work colleagues showed a real lack of integrity – one of my core values. But despite this making me feel uneasy, I continued seeing him. Eventually, his lack of integrity got directed at me and it ended with him simply not showing up and not responding to contact. Another interesting example of how going against one’s values can lead to trouble!
Example 2: Sean
The second man, whom I shall call Sean, was someone I had a serious relationship with. There was a definite clash of values between us but it took me a long time to realise it. I tried to communicate to Sean my need for space and time to myself, and for us to not be constantly ‘in each other’s pockets’. He did not share this need or understand it, and would push for more contact – to an extent that felt rather smothering to me. He would get frustrated with me and I would end up feeling ‘like a dog on a leash’! Once I recognised that one of my core values was autonomy and independence, it all made a lot more sense. We were not a good match.
Needless to say, the above examples do not constitute a balanced view of those relationships; I’m only seeking to illustrate how a mis-match of values can lead to fraught, conflicted and – often – failed relationships.
In closing
It’s worth noting that values can be conscious or unconscious, expressed or suppressed, chosen or inherited. Most of us are operating within value systems passed on to us by our family, upbringing, religion, schooling and the society we grew up in. Some of our values change with time, while others endure. Either way – if we are willing to let our values guide us, they might just provide the illumination and motivation we need to move forwards in our lives.
QUESTION: Do you have a sense of what your core values might be, and could you list them in order of importance to you?
7 Steps to Discovering Your Personal Core Values
How to Live With Purpose, Identify Your Values and Improve Your Leadership
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