Musings of an Unemployed, Employable Woman! (Day 3)

Alison's top tips on how to build your resilience and stay sane when job hunting!

Mantra of the week: 'Every setback is a setup for a comeback. I will learn, adapt, and rise stronger.'

Top Tip of the Day: Discover your core values - the Foundation of success!

Book of the week: Grit: why passion and resilience are the secrets to success, by Angela Duckworth

Find Your Values:

As the late, great Elvis Presley once said, "Values are like fingerprints. ?Nobody’s are the same, but you leave them all over everything you do."

In other words, values are the core principles that guide our decisions and behaviours.? By identifying them we can align our actions with our true selves, enabling us to live more authentically, purposefully and successfully.

As many of you who have ever been to any of my workshops or have ever been coached by me know, I am a big advocate of doing some self-reflection on values.? When we’re living into our values, our stress levels are reduced, we’re more confident decision makers and problem solvers, we take better care of ourselves and our health, and we have more willpower.? We’re also better communicators, more assertive, and we make wiser career choices.? Most importantly we have better relationships with others and that thing you call a ‘job’ is not a chore it is actually your life’s purpose.?

As a bit of a side note here for the Leaders out there – pay attention – if you want to improve employee engagement in your team – coach individuals into fulfilling their values and align them to organisational values, helping them work and live into their life’s purpose will undoubtedly lead to a happier employee experience!

I would highly recommend reading ‘Dare to Lead’ by Brené Brown she has a full section on values and their importance (this is one of my favourite leadership books in general) or go to her website and download her list of values to help you identify yours.? Or you could treat yourself to ‘The Live your Values’ Deck of cards by Lisa Congdon and Andreea Niculescu – my lovely friend bought me these as a leaving present from my last job, a very treasured and ‘valued’ gift.

Anyway, back to it! ?Now I know my book choice of the week is Angela Duckworth’s ‘GRIT’ and she does talk about values, but I thought I’d mix it up a bit, so, for my musings today I thought I’d draw some inspiration from Paul McKenna’s book ‘Success for Life’ (another great leaving present from another dear friend and I would definitely recommend working through all of the exercises in this one!).

It's really easy to rush headlong into setting goals and developing action plans without a clear sense of direction, we’re so used to this fast-paced world we live in, making decisions for the good of the organisation we might work for, and we often don’t take the time to reflect enough on how we really want and need to live our lives personally.? Paul McKenna points out that the key to sustainable success lies in gaining clarity on our core values as they act as the guiding principles that inform every decision we make and ensure that our goals are not just ambitious, but also align with what truly matters to us.? Values are the foundation upon which our lives and careers are built.? Setting goals without a strong sense of our values can lead to frustration, burnout and a lack of fulfilment, even if we achieve our goals.? I’ll talk about goal setting tomorrow, for now let’s just focus on identifying our core values. After all, as Duckworth points out in her book you're more likely to get 'gritty' and stick with something if the things you're doing actually align with your values!

Paul McKenna’s Formula for Gaining Clarity on Values

McKenna provides a simple yet powerful framework for identifying your core values. ?This process involves deep self-reflection and asking yourself a series of probing questions designed to uncover what truly drives you. ?Here’s a step-by-step guide based on McKenna's approach:

1. List Your Values: Start by brainstorming a list of values that resonate with you. These might include things like integrity, creativity, independence, family, or financial security. ?Don’t worry about getting it perfect at this stage—just write down whatever comes to mind or use Brené’s list for ideas: Dare to Lead | List of Values - Brené Brown (brenebrown.com).? You’re aiming to get to about 3 or 4 core values here, but in the first instance just circle all the ones that feel right to you – you’ll probably have about 15-20 to start with!? Grouping them into themes helped me identify mine – so for instance you might have integrity, honesty and fairness – all similar but might play out quite differently – the key for me was to work out which was the chicken, and which was the egg!
2. Prioritise Your Values: Once you have a list of values, the next step is to prioritise them. ?Ask yourself, "If I could only live by one of these values, which would it be?" Continue this process, comparing each value against the others, until you have a ranked list. This ranking helps you see which values are non-negotiable and which are more flexible.
3. Define Your Values: After prioritising, take some time to define what each value means to you. For example, if "integrity" is high on your list, describe what living with integrity looks like in your daily life. ?How does it influence your decisions and interactions with others?? This step is crucial because it turns abstract concepts into concrete guidelines for behaviour.? You might change your mind on what your values are also once you go into them in detail.
4. Reflect on Your Values: ?It’s worth spending the time on this step (took me about 2 weeks!)? McKenna suggests reflecting on past experiences to see how your values have influenced your life. ?Think about times when you felt most fulfilled or, conversely, when you felt discontented or out of sorts.? I found my values by observing my own behaviours, the behaviours in others and both my negative or positive reactions to them.? It turns out I’m not good to be around if I think someone is being treated unfairly, acting without integrity and if I don’t have a creative project on the go! (Just ask my kids! ??).? Give it a go, notice how your values play out for you during these key moments and interactions; this reflection can provide powerful insights into how your values shape your happiness and success.

Finding your values isn’t a one-time exercise; it’s an ongoing process of self-discovery and alignment. ?As your life and circumstances change, your values may evolve, and that’s perfectly normal. ?The key is to regularly revisit and reassess your values to ensure they still resonate with you. For instance, if you're a go getting, newly graduated single person with no ties, still living with parents and have little to no responsibilities your values might change once you move out and maybe start a family.

When you build your life and career around your core values, you create a strong foundation for success that is not only outwardly impressive but also deeply fulfilling. Your goals become more than just targets to hit—they become expressions of who you are and what you stand for.

In conclusion, before you dive into goal-setting and action planning, why not take some time to gain clarity on your values? With a little bit of help from Paul and Brené uncover what truly matters to you!

Tomorrow, I’ll talk more about how we align our goals with our values.? According to Paul McKenna you’ll not only achieve great success, you’ll also find a deeper sense of purpose and satisfaction in everything you do and not just become a rock star but become a rock legend!

Feel free to share your own experiences in the comments, and please do re-post if you think this might be useful for others.

Onwards and Upwards!

Alison