Using Your Pet Peeves to Identify Your Values

Values are like the air we breathe - we live with it everyday but it's difficult to see or describe it. We mostly notice it when we don't get enough of it (or it's polluted).

Values are the abstract guiding principles by which we make decisions, allocate time/money/energy, and set priorities.

As a career coach who specializes in personal branding to help others live a more authentic, meaningful, and fulfilling life, I often encourage students and clients to identify their core values so they can live in better alignment with them. This is much harder said than done.

"What are the most important things to you?"

Most people stumble in their responses and end up saying universal things like family, career, health, money, fun, etc. This is not necessarily untrue, of course, but we need to dig deeper to get to our unique and extremely personal values so we can more precisely honor them. When we live lives that are chronically not in alignment with our values, we can easily feel depressed, frustrated, angry, stuck, lost, or ashamed.

Most values assessments consist of narrowing down a huge list of values to a small number of values, or organizing a certain number of values into your order of most to least important. I've tried various methods to help people identify their values, and they have all been severely lacking and imperfect because they are hypothetical. Most assessments cause people to choose what they think their values should be.

I've found a more precise real life, real time method: Notice the times when you are most frustrated and ask yourself which values are being violated.

The core emotion of frustration is anger, which is caused by a sense of having our rights violated or feeling like things are not as they should be. Frustration stems from the gap between our expectations and reality. We feel wronged by a situation or other people. Our values are not being reinforced. Your pet peeves hold the key to your values.

It's hard to step back and reflect on your values in a level-headed way when you're frustrated, so let me share some personal examples of values I discovered I had in hindsight:

• HONESTY - I lost my necklace in junior high school and saw another girl wearing it. She kept insisting she bought it herself but I knew she had stolen it from me. I reported it but she kept lying to the school authorities and I never got my necklace back. (I cannot stand it when people intentionally try to deceive others.)
• HEALTH - I arrived in Las Vegas late at night for a family reunion and our hotel reeked strongly of cigarette smoke and I was extremely upset because we couldn't change our reservation and I had to breathe secondhand smoke all night, which would exacerbate my sinus and allergy issues. (I highly value my body and hate jeopardizing my well-being.)
• ACCOUNTABILITY - I was asked to give a presentation on a certain date but 2 days before the scheduled time, I had not received any detailed instructions. I had done my part to block out the time on my calendar but did not have the information I needed to give a solid presentation. (It baffles me when people make false promises and don't do what they say they will do.)
• EFFICIENCY - I worked for someone who had me print a multi-page document, made one pen correction on it, had me make the single change on the computer, print the whole document again, and repeat this process many times instead of making all the pen corrections at once. (I hate wasting time and resources; I'm always trying to streamline processes.)
• VARIETY - I had visitors from out of town and they kept wanting to eat at the same national chain restaurants instead of trying the local restaurants that are unique to the area and it drove me batty. (Familiarity can be comforting but I constantly want to explore and experience new things, especially if they are readily available.)
• FEMINISM - I have been very fortunate to never have felt like I was held back from anything I wanted to do because of my sex. I recently learned more about the violence, discrimination, gaslighting, and abuse millions of other women experience. (It infuriates and breaks my heart that so many women don't have the power to break out of destructive circumstances, and demand equality and respect.)
• KINDNESS - I was watching a food competition show where the contestants had been separated from their families for a long time and the host surprised them all by flying their families out to watch them cook for one episode. Everyone had joyful reunions except for one contestant who had told the host that none of his family supported his cooking dreams, so later, the host was unable to find any willing family members to come support him. I was livid that the host put him through that kind of pain and humiliation on national television. (I know "hurt people hurt people" but I have no tolerance for deliberate unkindness towards others.)
• PASSION - I proposed a professional development activity to my boss that I thought perfectly complemented my role and would help others in a more meaningful way. My boss denied my request because it was not explicitly listed in my job description. I immediately started job searching. (I strongly encourage others to follow their passions to fulfill their potential, and it maddens me when others attempt to stunt my pursuit of my full potential.)

Get the idea? I invite you to go through this exercise to identify your deepest values. Then go forth and live your values out loud!

• Seek out jobs, people, and situations that support and celebrate your values.
• Spend your time, money, energy, and other resources pursuing your values.
• When you notice your values being violated, seek to remedy it or avoid it if you can.

Values are one of the 5 components in your self-inventory, another personal branding exercise I encourage in this article.

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This article is part of a series on Personal Branding. Other articles in the series can be found on my website. If you'd like to join the mailing list to receive updates on newly published articles, please fill out this form.