01 Sep The Transformative Power Of Values Alignment
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU HONOUR YOUR CORE VALUES?
Personal values are a significant part of what defines you as a person. They have a primary influence on your behaviour and attitude and provide the motivation to achieve your goals.
Being aware of your core values and aligning them with your decision making and gives you more control over your life, minimises inner conflict and enables you to better understand and connect with yourself more fully.
The benefits include:
- Authenticity: Living in alignment with your core values allows you to be true to yourself and live authentically, promoting a sense of self-acceptance and inner peace.
- Clarity and Focus: Understanding your core values provides clarity about what truly matters to you, enabling you to prioritize your goals and make decisions that align with your values.
- Decision-Making: Your core values serve as a compass in decision-making, guiding you to make choices that are in harmony with your beliefs and principles.
- Fulfilment: When your actions align with your core values, you experience a sense of fulfilment and purpose, as you are actively living a life that resonates with your deepest desires.
- Empowerment: Honouring your core values empowers you to set boundaries, make choices that serve your well-being, and live a life that reflects your unique identity.
- Consistency: Your core values provide a consistent framework for your behaviour and actions, enhancing your reliability and integrity in your personal and professional relationships.
- Self-Discovery: Exploring and honouring your core values can be a journey of self-discovery, helping you gain deeper insights into your identity, strengths, and aspirations.
- Resilience: When faced with challenges or setbacks, your core values can serve as a source of strength and resilience, allowing you to stay committed and persevere in difficult times.
- Enhanced Relationships: Living in alignment with your core values promotes more authentic connections with others, as you attract people who share similar values and foster relationships built on mutual understanding and respect.
- Overall Wellbeing: Honouring your core values contributes to your overall well-being by reducing internal conflict, fostering a sense of fulfilment, and promoting a balanced and purposeful life.
CLIENT STORY: VALUES ALIGNMENT
At the half-way point in a client’s coaching cycle, we review progress and I always ask what the most beneficial part of the coaching has been for them to date. A recent client [*Sophie] said work to elicit her core values had been transformative in her life and was now the “compass that guides all of my decision making”. It was significant in helping her to connect to her true self, live more authentically, have confidence in her choices, and align her actions with what she truly wants. Now that she understands her inner motivations, her values act as an umpire.
Sophie, a high-performing executive, was out of sync with her true self. The outward success in her career had not translated to inner self-acceptance. She was experiencing dissatisfaction, stress, and conflict due to being disconnected from parts of herself that she had subconsciously repressed. And it was impacting many areas of her life.
Sophie had lost touch with who she really was and become subsumed with her professional persona “her mask”. To all intents and purposes, she was a well put together, confident, self-starter who had earned her position in the c-suite.
But Sophie was experiencing an inner conflict, something was missing. The choices she was making in her personal life did not reflect the professional persona she had carefully curated, it was as if she were two entirely different people.
Up until this point she was able to mask those feelings of discontent with busyness and her increasing professional achievements – the latter being essential to “prove herself”. But she was unable to develop healthy romantic relationships and she subconsciously but consistently put the needs of a partner, close friends or family above her own. Sophie was the “go to person” for whatever they wanted to get done. While this gave her a sense of validation and belonging; it was unable to fill an inner void. Sophie was running on empty.
For Sophie to continue to succeed in her career, she had to succeed in her life as well, otherwise she would struggle to enjoy her accomplishments or set meaningful goals. Therefore, a holistic approach – coaching the whole person – is vital. At the very foundation, Sophie’s true understanding of who she really was and what she really wanted was unclear. Therefore, her goals and achievements were not satisfying.
My signature model for unlocking the core identity enables clients to connect with who they REALLY are and create alignment with what they TRULY want, eliminating stress, burnout and inner conflict. Women gain the insight and confidence to step into their unique purpose. The process involves breaking free from the mask of acceptance, challenging limiting beliefs, and tuning into their core values to foster confidence, personal growth, impact and healing. To be at one with yourself (inside and out) is the springboard to fulfilling your true potential and enjoying it.
As Sophie moved through the coaching process, she highlighted that values elicitation was where a major shift took place.
By identifying her core values and becoming aligned with them – which meant honouring them in her behaviour and actions – she became more in touch with herself [core identity]. This has improved her decision making and Sophie has become a better advocate for herself with family and friends and now is able to identify and eliminate patterns of behaviour that attracted the wrong type of partner. Now Sophie has more energy and feels in charge of all aspects of her life. She feels “powerful and in control”.
The idealistic values or those adopted from her upbringing were shed, and now Sophie is very clear about which core values she should consistently honour in her life that will give her the greatest fulfilment personally and professionally. The inner conflict has diminished and she no longer feels like two entirely different people.
Discovering your core values can be a transformative process, as highlighted in Sophie’s case, but several factors may hinder or complicate this journey. Some common obstacles that get in the way of discovering your core values include:
- External Influences: Society, family, friends, and cultural norms can exert significant pressure on you, making it challenging to identify and embrace your authentic values. External expectations may overshadow your personal beliefs, leading to confusion and internal conflict.
- Fear of Judgment: The fear of being judged or criticized for your beliefs can discourage you from exploring and expressing your true values. The fear of social repercussions may lead you to suppress your authentic self and conform to societal norms.
- Lack of Self-Awareness: You may lack self-awareness, which is crucial for understanding your own desires, motivations, and principles. Without this self-awareness, it becomes difficult to recognize and articulate your core values.
- Prioritizing Others’ Needs: Constantly prioritizing the needs and desires of others over your own can make it hard to differentiate personal values from external expectations. This self-neglect can cloud your path to self-discovery.
- Past Trauma or Conditioning: Negative experiences or conditioning from past events can shape your beliefs and values in ways that may not align with your true self. These past influences can obstruct the process of uncovering authentic core values.
- Past Trauma or Negative Experiences: Past traumas or negative experiences can create emotional barriers that hinder self-reflection and the discovery of core values.
- Lack of Reflection Time: In today’s fast-paced world, you may struggle to find time for introspection and self-reflection. Without dedicating time to understand yourself better, identifying core values becomes more challenging.
- Conflicting Values and Priorities: You may hold conflicting values, making it difficult to prioritize or decide which values truly resonate with you. Balancing these contradictions can create confusion and hinder the discovery process.
- Feeling Overwhelmed: The sheer number of potential values and their complexity can be overwhelming, making it hard for you to discern the most significant ones. This overwhelm can deter many from exploring their core values more deeply.
- Unrealistic Expectations: You may have preconceived notions about what your core values should be, based on societal ideals or external influences. These unrealistic expectations can obscure your genuine values.
- Lack of Supportive Environment: Having a supportive environment where you are encouraged to explore and express your true self is crucial for the discovery of core values. Without this support, you may suppress you true values to fit in or avoid conflict.
- Belief in Fixed Identity: You may believe your core values are predetermined or fixed, and this mindset can inhibit the exploration of personal growth and evolving values.
Without undergoing a discovery process with a qualified coach, it can be challenging to identify your personal core values, as it’s easy to speculate and idealise about what you think you should value. Knowing and accepting what you truly value takes effort.
COACHING CAN ASSIST YOU TO DISCOVER:
- What values are essential to your life
- What values represent your primary way of being
- What values are essential to supporting your inner-self
- How to live in alignment with your core values to minimise inner conflict and achieve your desired goals.
WORK WITH SUZANNE FOR A PERSONALISED APPROACH TO YOUR TRANSFORMATION JOURNEY
Eliminate stress, burnout and inner conflict and connect with who you really are. Register for my six-month intensive coaching programme to gain the insight and confidence needed to reinvent with intent, creating a roadmap to fulfil your unique purpose.
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