The Question You Need To Be Asking Yourself But You're Not
What do YOU value?
And I mean, what do you honestly value in life?
My financial advisor and I were going through my spending performance in first quarter of 2019. I told her I felt guilty for not putting all my spending money to my student loans and instead using it on dinners, flights, and lattés. She responded that we had a solid repayment plan in play for my loans and that I should use the extra money towards what’s important to me and the things I value in my life right now.
“What do you value?”
The question kind of lingered in my mind. In my gut, I knew I wasn’t completely sure. In my head, I kept thinking of all the corporate values I learned for interviews and jobs and I knew them well.
Why did I know all of THEIR values and NOT MY OWN?
When you’re an employee of a company, you’re expected to embrace their values as all organizations should.
It makes sense. Companies rely on the market understanding their values and mission because it is a large part of their brand and the reputation of their products and services. Just think of some majors ones--
Nike values performance, authenticity, innovation and sustainability
Apple values making the best products in the market
Whole Foods values nourishing people and the planet
It makes me wonder though--
Why don’t we, as individuals, work as hard on having our own set of core values for our lives?
Not having your own core values puts you on the track to live your life by default and not by design.
The consequence of not understanding your personal values is that you miss out on the ease to make decisions smarter and faster because you would have principles to help shape your life with intention.
In order to identify what your own values are, you need to tune into your self awareness. The key is that your core values are discovered, not invented.
Here is how to discover your personal core values:
Your values need to qualify for rule 1 or both:
You are living and breathing these values and they are already in your approach to life
You are actively working on becoming a person who exhibits these values each day
Note that 2 only works if you’re already doing 1. Otherwise, it’s fairy dust.
Asking: "Well, what’s important to me? What do I value in my life?” is an unproductive approach and I don’t want you to waste your time.
To help you figure these out, here are questions I recommend asking yourself:
How do you spend most of your time?
Where do you spend most of your money?
What are some things you’ve sacrificed sleep for? or sacrificed anything for?
When was a time you felt disrespected? What did that person overlook or not consider that you valued more?
If you had kids (or if you already do), what’s something you’d make sure they would learn from you about life?
We are a work in progress and I think values change as we grow.
Today, here are my 3 core values-
Relationships are everything
I get the most joy from the people I spend my time with and it’s irreplaceable. I’m intentional with who I build strong relationships with because I recognize that I’m impressionable and I believe in the law of averages.The way you do anything is the way you do everything
People don’t internalize excellence enough and your quality of work and reputation will eventually precede you. The background on this one is my Korean father, who was neurotic in making sure the house chores were done to the T, believing that the quality of housekeeping translates to other areas in our lives.110%
“I wish I gave it less effort” -said no one ever. Academic competitions early on taught me that you can work insanely hard, give your absolute best, and still lose. Will you be unhappy? Yes. Will you lose your motivation? Temporarily. Will you regret giving it your best shot? No. Actualizing your potential is the most common path toward self-fulfillment.
Your core values serve as the drivers of substantially every decision the you make. The reason why we remember brands for their values is not because they tagline it but because they make it a priority to live it.
That’s what you need to do with yours.