Living Your Values, Part I by Steve Pavlina

25 Aug 15

31 Oct 14

ariched96

getting clear about what's most important to you in life
eliciting and prioritizing your personal values
step-by-step process for eliciting and prioritizing your personal values
r eliciting an
process
of living with integrity to your values
The main benefit of knowing your values is that you will gain tremendous clarity and focus, but ultimately you must use that newfound clarity to make consistent decisions and take committed action
So the whole point of discovering your values is to improve the results you get in those areas that are truly most important to you.
Values are priorities that tell you how to spend your time, right here, right now.
time is our most limited resource; time does not renew itself. Once we spend a day, it's gone forever. If we waste that day by investing our time in actions that don't produce the results we want, that loss is permanent.
we cannot redo yesterday
if we value our mortal lives, then it's logical to invest them as best we can
You're free to decide what "best" means to you. The very idea that some possible permutations of your life appeal to you more than others means that knowing your values will be of great benefit to you.
we human beings tend to be fairly inconsistent in how we invest our time and energy. Most of us are easily distracted. It's easy for us to fall into the trap of living by different priorities every day.
If we don't consciously use our priorities to stick to a clear and consistent course, we'll naturally drift off course and shift all over the place. And this kind of living yields poor results.
So for these two reasons - limited time and a typically low index of distraction - consciously knowing and living by our values become extremely important.
Values act as our compass to put us back on course every single day, so that day after day, we're moving in the direction that takes us closer and closer to our definition of the "best" life we could possibly live.
For others, being compassionate is what's most important.
Each plane requires its own individual course.
Because you can't do everything at once, you have to prioritize which planes are most precious to you. You may not be able to land them all within the span of your lifetime because you probably don't know how long your lifetime will be; nor can you be certain how long it will take to land each of these planes. But realize that the closer you get each plane to its airport, the better that area of your life will be.
What is truly important to me in life?
Try to reduce your responses to a single word or two that encapsulates each answer.
Don't worry about the order of your list yet or how long it is. Just get everything down in writing.
There's no hard rule for how long your list should be, but I usually prefer a list in the range of 10-15 values. If you have more than this, consider cutting out the marginal values that just barely made your list, or combine multiple values that are nearly identical on a single line, like achievement/accomplishment.
Which of these values is truly the most important to me in life? If I could only satisfy one of these values, which one would it be?
Other times you'll have it narrowed down to a few choices but will have a hard time figuring out which one is really the most important among those. When that happens here's what I recommend. Invent a scenario for each value, and then compare those scenarios.
Now that you have your own values hierarchy worked out, it may seem like you've just unlocked something important. Many books that cover values treat it as such. But in my experience, this particular list isn't actually that important. This list only tells you the values that have previously been conditioned into you - by your upbringing and by society. In terms of our airplane analogy, this list tells you where your planes are currently headed. But that isn't necessarily the direction you want those planes to continue to go.
You don't have to continue living by the same values. You can consciously change them - even radically if desired. You can go from a person who values peace most highly to one whose top priority is success, or vice versa. You are not your values. You are the thinker of your thoughts, but you are not the thoughts themselves. Your values are your current compass, but they aren't the real you.
Why would you ever want to change your values?
You may want to change your values when you understand and accept where they are taking you, and you realize that what you appear to value right now will not enable you to enjoy the "best" possible life for you. Your "best" life is your vision of all the destinations you wish to reach - the greatest ultimate destiny you can possibly imagine for yourself. But your values are just a measure of the current direction you're headed right now. And in most cases these two things are incongruent, meaning that your current values are not aligned with the course of your best life.
If you keep living by your current values, then you can expect to get similar results to what you're already getting, possibly a little better if you apply them more consciously.
But most likely there is some part of you that isn't satisfied with where you'll end up if you keep following this same course.
Now what if all these "nevers" could suddenly become possible for you? How can they? They can become possible for you by shifting your values. And here's the key: You don't need to maintain the same values throughout your entire life. You can change them as often as you like. I recreate my own values list every 3-6 months.
When you change your values list and consciously act on it, you change your behavior and therefore your results.

32 more annotations...

23 Sep 14

Alexey Tarasevich

value priority time decision_making

connect your values to your goals
use that newfound clarity to make consistent decisions and take committed action.
Values are priorities that tell you how to spend your time, right here, right now.
time is our most limited resource
human beings tend to be fairly inconsistent in how we invest our time and energy
Brainstorm a list of your values as your answers to this question.
list of values
prioritize your list.
You can consciously change them - even radically if desired.
You are not your values.
Your values are your current compass, but they aren't the real you.

9 more annotations...

28 Jun 14

Hilary Cross

productivity personalgrowth

12 Jan 14

yaronshemesh

values

26 Jul 13

Victoria Harris

15 Apr 13

Monica Del Castillo

29 May 12

Kellsai Schwerin

values Goals lifehacks toread life management based value living purpose strategy

18 May 12

yee lor

The main benefit of knowing your values is that you will gain tremendous clarity and focus, but ultimately you must use that newfound clarity to make consistent decisions and take committed action. So the whole point of discovering your values is to improve the results you get in those areas that are truly most important to you.

05 Sep 11

kindelina

21 Jun 11

Rebecca Murphy

advisor values character

08 Jan 11

Martyn Mayfield

values personal leadership core

I want to take you much deeper into this rich subject and show you how to intelligently connect your values to your goals.
In Part I, I will guide you through a step-by-step process for eliciting and prioritizing your personal values
My second goal is to explain the process of living with integrity to your values, so you learn how to consciously use your values to make decisions and take action.
Why Do Values Matter?
the whole point of discovering your values is to improve the results you get in those areas that are truly most important to you.
Values are priorities that tell you how to spend your time, right here, right now.
time is our most limited resource; time does not renew itself. Once we spend a day, it's gone forever. If we waste that day by investing our time in actions that don't produce the results we want, that loss is permanent.
The second reason priorities matter is that we human beings tend to be fairly inconsistent in how we invest our time and energy
So for these two reasons - limited time and a typically low index of distraction - consciously knowing and living by our values become extremely important.
Eliciting Your Values
Here is a step-by-step method to create your own personal values hierarchy.
it will require your concentrated attention
time consuming process
The question to ask yourself is this: What is truly important to me in life?
make this task easier for you, I've put together an extensive list of values you can use to help build your own list
There's no hard rule for how long your list should be, but I usually prefer a list in the range of 10-15 values.
Prioritizing Your Values
The next step is to prioritize your list.
My preferred method of prioritizing my values list is to identify the top value, then the second highest value, and so on until I've rebuilt the whole list in order of priority from the top to the bottom.
begin by asking yourself these questions: Which of these values is truly the most important to me in life? If I could only satisfy one of these values, which one would it be? The answer to this question is your number one value.
What can you tell me about this person
When you know a person's values hierarchy, you should have a fair chance of predicting their behavior
in my experience, this particular list isn't actually that important.
Reexamining Your Values
You can consciously change them - even radically if desired.
Is it really possible that you can consciously change your values? Yes it is.
Why would you ever want to change your values?
You may want to change your values when you understand and accept where they are taking you, and you realize that what you appear to value right now will not enable you to enjoy the "best" possible life for you
If you keep living by your current values, then you can expect to get similar results to what you're already getting, possibly a little better if you apply them more consciously
You don't need to maintain the same values throughout your entire life. You can change them as often as you like. I recreate my own values list every 3-6 months.
Through this process of consciously shifting your values, you've changed from a gym rat to an entrepreneur to a philanthropist.
Changing Your Values
So how can you decide how to change your values? You go through a very similar process of listing and prioritizing, but now you do it with your destinations - your goals.
You just repeat the above steps with your goals instead of your values
write out your goals. Decide which ones are truly most important to you. Prioritize them.
this goals list represents your list of airports.
Now do you see the problem with having a static list of values throughout your entire life? How is a single list of values going to allow you to hit all these different stops?
Think back to the big, meaningful goals that you've already accomplished. Didn't you have to go through a period where achieving that goal became your top priority for a while?
Whenever you achieve a major goal, that's a good time to select a new goal and update your values list to accommodate it.
Most books I've read that cover values suggest that you derive your goals from your values. I recommend the exact opposite approach - that you derive your values from your goals.
I always felt I was missing something because my static values list never seemed to allow me to achieve certain goals. Eventually I figured out that goals come first, and then values can be adapted to fit those goals; when a goal is reached, then a whole new values hierarchy can be created.

39 more annotations...

12 Jul 10

Adam Sicinski

values for:#steve-pavlina

08 Jun 10

Jay Richter

values goals dream

09 Nov 09

Hiliana Leon

health

07 Jul 08

dvdesigns1099

ideals Values goals

09 May 08

Mounirra Jaliel

Values are priorities that tell you how to spend your time, right here, right now.
Most of us are easily distracted. It's easy for us to fall into the trap of living by different priorities every day
So for these two reasons - limited time and a typically low index of distraction - consciously knowing and living by our values become extremely important
Because you can't do everything at once, you have to prioritize which planes are most precious to you. You may not be able to land them all within the span of your lifetime because you probably don't know how long your lifetime will be; nor can you be certain how long it will take to land each of these planes. But realize that the closer you get each plane to its airport, the better that area of your life will be.
Brainstorm a list of your values as your answers to this question.
You may want to change your values when you understand and accept where they are taking you, and you realize that what you appear to value right now will not enable you to enjoy the "best" possible life for you. Your "best" life is your vision of all the destinations you wish to reach - the greatest ultimate destiny you can possibly imagine for yourself. But your values are just a measure of the current direction you're headed right now. And in most cases these two things are incongruent, meaning that your current values are not aligned with the course of your best life.
These goals represent the experiences that you feel are part of the "best" life you could live.
At some point in your life, you'll need to focus intently on one of these goals while letting the others slide.