You Have to Know Your Values
December 10, 2020
If you don’t know what your values are, you’ll always be at the mercy of everyone else’s. You’ll always feel wobbly around what’s right and true for you. You won’t be able to take a firm stance on anything at all, let alone the things that matter most.
Freedom is my highest personal value, and truth is a very close second. You can’t have freedom if you can’t face, welcome, and accept truth. Truth about yourself, others, and what you’re creating in your life and work.
Growth is also one of my highest personal values. If I’m going to be in this weird little world that I’ll never fully understand or belong to, I’m going to find out just how much potential I’m capable of actualizing while I’m here. I’m going to commit to endlessly pushing my edges and finding out what’s possible for my life and work.
These are just a few of my values, but my point is this…
You have to know your values to live your purpose and do your work in this world. Your professional values may be different (my company values are, though there’s crossover). But if you don’t know your personal values, you’ll never be able to align yourself with the path that’s right for you. You’ll be pulled away from your truth. You’ll make choices and decisions incongruent with your heart. You’ll find yourself living a life that was never yours.
And that’s the worst feeling of all. Waking up inside what others would consider a great life, feeling like a shell of yourself and willing to give anything to go back and begin again with clarity and direction.
Ask me how I know. 
It’s never too late. No matter how far down the road you’ve gone in the wrong direction, you can always choose to stop. You can always choose to do the challenging work of aligning with what’s true for you—untangling from everything that doesn’t serve you. It’s not easy work, and it can take time, but it always possible. It’s always just one values-based choice away. No matter how deeply you’ve rooted your life in someone else’s values, you can always choose yours.
You just have to be willing to do the work.
And it starts with know what’s aligned for you.
