Discover your core values in 3 simple steps
Knowing your values is key to a happy, fulfilling life
Have you ever achieved a goal you thought would make you happy and fulfilled, only to feel nothing?
Or maybe you’ve checked all the boxes in life, got a good job, nice house, married someone you love, but still — you feel unhappy and a little trapped rather than fulfilled and grateful.
You want to feel happy, free, creatively self-expressed and at peace.
Yet you have so many responsibilities! Life has become a hamster wheel and you don’t know how to find freedom and joy without burning your entire life down, which you don’t want to do.
If you don’t figure things out, you’ll spend the rest of your life running in place, wanting to break free, but feeling trapped in a prison of your own making.
I want to show you how to find meaning in your daily responsibilities while also creating space for the things that matter to you — the things that nurture your creativity, health and sense of fulfillment and purpose.
The way to do that is to identify your core values, and use them to guide your life.
Today, I’m sharing with you a simple, but powerful 3-step process to identify your core values and showing you how to apply them to make changes starting today.
Before we get started, my name is Suzanne, and I’m a spiritual life coach who helps ambitious women find their purpose and create fulfilling, joyful lives.
What are values?
Values are simply the things that matter most to you — at the deepest, soul level.
Some values are abstract, like my values of freedom, courage and creativity, while others are specific, and can more easily be translated into goals, like my other values of health, learning and business success.
Today, we’re focusing on specific values that you can connect to goals.
That’s how you create a joyful, fulfilling, fully self-expressed life aligned with your soul.
Most people live by shoulds and have-tos rather values.
You should keep your house perfectly clean.
You have to go to work every day. (You may have to, but you can make reclaim your power around this!)
You should never say no, set a boundary or make someone do something for themselves — not if you can do it for them!
As these shoulds accumulate, it’s no wonder you have no time to figure out what’s important to you, let alone create space to focus on those things.
3 things to know about values
1. Your values change throughout your life.
You may find yourself living according to a value you used to have, but that no longer rings true.
For example, I used to value traveling, and I still do, but right now it doesn’t motivate me. I’m focused on other values like health, business success and family.
2. Your emotions are a powerful indicator of whether you’re aligned with your values.
If you are aligned with your values, you’ll feel peaceful, motivated, happy and fulfilled.
If you’re not, you’ll feel stressed, sad, angry, frustrated, resentful or stuck.
3. If a goal isn’t aligned with your top value, you’ll have a hard time staying motivated to achieve it.
I experienced this because one of my main values is health. I exercise 4 to 5 times a week, but struggle with other things, like closing my laptop at 3:30 p.m., which is when I aim to end the day.
I always fit a workout in, but sometimes it feels rushed and stressed, instead of calm and spacious.
One day I realized that I while I value my health, what really motivates me is business success. So I shifted my mindset.
It felt difficult to stop work on time when I felt it delayed my success. But then I realized that limiting work hours actually helps me succeed because it gives me more time to exercise and relax before dinner.
That increased energy and vitality supports my success, not cramming in a couple extra hours at my laptop.
After making that connection, the habit became much easier to create.
How to discover your core values in 3 simple steps
First, I’ll give you a few questions to journal on, and then I’ll share how to incorporate your values into your daily life.
1. What do you think should matter?
What *should* be important to you? Where did this value come from?
The signs that you’re living your shoulds are negative emotions like frustration, resentment or sadness.
When you try to force yourself to do something that’s not really important to you, you will rebel against yourself.
2. What do you think about the most?
If you’re like me and my clients, that’s mostly finding your purpose, creating financial abundance, and nurturing your health.
The things you think about the most show you the true desires of your heart. Don’t judge yourself for what you really want!
3. What do you spend your money on?
We all spend money on what we value. I spend my money on clothes because I value beauty, high-quality food like grass-fed beef and dairy, and organic fruits and vegetables when possible. I also invest in my success, like amazing software for my clients, business coaches and marketing courses.
My values became obvious after looking at my spending, and I stopped beating myself up for not focusing as much on my spiritual growth, which is what I told myself I should value.
I spent years focused on inner work and healing — it allowed me to find my purpose, and now I’m focused on helping other people through that same journey.
Speaking of which, I have one space left in my 1:1 coaching program that’s designed to help you create a joyful, fulfilling, creatively self-expressed life, including monetizing your purpose, if that’s something you want to do.
Book a free 30-minute call where we can talk about your goals and see if the program is right for you.
Once you have the answers to those questions, run them through two filters:
What are the commonalities?
Make sure you don’t have any “shoulds” in there.
The answers will probably be obvious to you as you answer the questions, but in case not, notice which values repeat.
Now, apply those values to your life.
This is so you can feel more at peace with your responsibilities while also creating space to focus on your personal growth an fulfillment.
1. Connect your responsibilities to your values.
For example, I used to hate cooking. But now I see it as a way to nurture my health, and my husband’s. Family is also really important to me, and cooking is a way to show gratitude to my husband because he works so hard for our family.
When you focus on why your responsibilities matter, everything becomes meaningful and the mundane becomes sacred.
2. Identify which values aren’t currently expressed in your life.
When your values aren’t expressed, you won’t feel self-expressed. For any that aren’t represented, ask yourself — what would expressing this value look like?
3. Create space to add things you value into your life.
By now, you’ve probably identified areas in life where you’re over-performing, doing things you don’t really need to do, because you think you should.
If you’re doing something you don’t value or don’t find meaningful, or that makes you feel overwhelmed or resentful, ask yourself — how can you delete, delegate or reduce this responsibility to create space?
4. Align your goals to your values.
Turn your desire for change into a concrete goal, and tie it to one of your values.
For example: Set the goal to exercise 3 x a week (even if only for 20 minutes), or spend 30 minutes each night working on your passion project.
Before you say, “I don’t have time,” think about ways you’re spending time in ways that add nothing to your life.
Looking at screens.
Worrying.
Over-performing because you don’t have boundaries, are a perfectionist, or can’t say no.
Be ruthless with how you spend your time, because it’s how you spend your life!
If you already have goals you’re working on, tie those to your values, too.
For example, if your goal is to start a business — you might think you want to make a lot of money, but why? To provide security for your family? To be able to stay home with your kids? To travel?
If your goal is to lose weight — you might think you want to fit into size 4 jeans, but why? Do you want to feel lighter and stronger as you move through your day? Do you want to reduce the risk of hereditary illness?
This is how you’ll stay motivated and consistent — not by beating yourself up but by focusing on why your goal matters.
And if you have goals that don’t actually matter to you, this exercise will illuminate that. Ditch them to pursue goals that do matter!
If you want to stay consistent and actually achieve these goals, then you need a highly effective personal development plan.
Next week I’m going to guide you step-by-step to create a plan that works so you can find your purpose and create a fulfilling, joyful life.
Inner work to organize your life around your deeper values to find meaning, fulfillment and purpose
This week’s inner work is some of the most life-changing you can do!
You’ll be guided to:
Do a life values audit
Build the right mindset to make necessary changes
Discover how to transform the parts of your life that feel empty so they feel inspiring and fulfilling
Understand the key mistake you’re probably making that keeps you stuck rather than growing into the person you’re meant to be