Want to live a life with purpose? Do what you value!

People often say “do what you love” or “do what you’re passionate about”. I find all that a little too fluffy! I wanted to break it down into a more systematic approach:

1.     Find out what you value

2.     Identify what each value means to you

3.     Work out which of your values can become part of not just who you are, but also what you do!

Do what you VALUE!

As I sit down to write about values, adapting to change, using values in goal setting, and as a decision-making compass, I can’t help but think about values as a utility. By this, I mean “the value we get from something” or the typical economic definition of utility “the level of satisfaction obtained by consuming a particular good or service”. This is important to consider when packaging yourself or your product/service for your customer (clients, employees, employers, team members, friends and family) because the utility a person or company gains is usually something they are willing to pay for, love you for or simply make them want to spend time with you. I have in the past related the “value I bring” or my utility as things like generating revenue, coaching and mentoring teams, helping the creative process, the plans and strategies I deliver, my knowledge/experience and the technology we build. What I (and more than likely you) have not actively considered is that my values (defined by the things that are important to you, your guiding light) can also be at the base of the utility my customers benefit from and thus are willing to engage me for.

As discussed in my last post (Stuck in chaos - do or die), we are moving through a period of massive change. As a result, you might be struggling to identify how you need to react to the changing circumstances. This might be a subtle reaction or might not require any change at all, in some cases, it might require drastic change, or you might have the opportunity to re-evaluate your current position. You might want a change, or you might just be generally unhappy with your work or personal life. Before planning your next move, building out your personal brand, re-writing your CV or setting your next stretch goal take the time to remind yourself what it is that makes you, you and what is important to you and go from there.

In a future post, I will discuss “core and augmented features”, a concept often used in marketing and product design which can be nicely applied to personal branding. I mention this here though because, as I see it, these are the features of a product (in other words your features, where you are the product) that derive utility or perceived utility for your customers and therefore should become part of how you position your value proposition.

A quick note on goal setting – there are many, many models out there on goal setting (I won’t cover these unless someone asks) and I’d recommend you use whichever model works for you. One thing I would add is linking your goal back to one of your core values. This will help shift the dial from extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation and will help you stay determined to achieve your goal. For more on intrinsic motivation, I would highly recommend Dan Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Ok, let’s get into some tools and the process I typically use to identify my values and leverage them in building out goals and value propositions and embed into my decision-making process.

Identify your values

I have used a number of methods in the past to identify and hone my values depending on the purpose of the exercise and what I am dealing with at the time. When I have felt stuck, helpless and disenfranchised in the past, I have found it really useful just to write a list of things that are important to me. For example:

• Life-long learning
• Mentoring
• Continuous development
• Leadership
• Community
• Building Something
• Navigating through chaos
• Health and Wellbeing 
• Ambition/Growth
• Adding Value
• Vision
• Creativity 

At this stage don’t limit yourself, but aim for at least 10, if you come up with 15, 20 or 50 that is perfectly fine. We are in a discovery or “divergent mode” (for those familiar with the Double Diamond), this is your opportunity to explore all the words or phrases that are the most important to you.

If you are struggling to come up with a list of words that resonate, I have two suggestions:

1.     Ask people close to you and start to get a 360-degree feedback loop, but this I mean ask your friends, family, kids, your boss, your bosses boss, people in your team, clients and anyone you work closely with three questions:

• What is one thing you value about me?
• What is something I am awesome at (or do really well)?
• What would you like to see me do better at?

By asking these questions we have an opportunity to learn something new about ourselves as well as getting useful feedback, here we could use the Johari Window model (below) as a tool for self-discovery (and possibly building some trust across your stakeholder groups). Getting a view on how others see you might be uncomfortable but will also yield some useful information you can use to compile your values list.

Johari Window Model

2.     Option two is a useful values assessment tool by the Barrett Values Centre, leveraging the Barrett model (pictured below) which builds upon Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. The Barrett Values Centre also has some interesting resources on understanding personal consciousness, leadership consciousness and organisational consciousness. The tool I’d recommend using is the Personal Values Assessment https://www.valuescentre.com/tools-assessments/pva/. This survey will get you to chose 10 words that resonate the most for you and will also provide you with commentary and exercises to help you understand your values and build an action plan to better live your values.

THE BARRETT MODEL

You should now have a list of 10 or more values. The next step is to prioritise your values, list them in order of priority. Leave the list for a day or two and revisit it. Are you happy with the priority, or do you need to shift things around?

Next step

Now that you have a prioritised list of values and hopefully have also had some interesting feedback from others along the way, you now need to try your best to incorporate your values into what you do, how you do it, how you communicate, the goals you pursue and how you want others to see you.

When goal setting or looking to make a change, I like going a level deeper and really interrogate my values as I see them at that moment in time. Remember, you are ever-changing, and as much as your values are core to who you are, your perception of what they mean to you will change based on your context (if I was feeling enlightened, I might say something like “you can change while being true to your authentic self”). An example of how I have done this in the past is below, for fun let’s call this the Diamond Values-to-Goals Model;

In this example, I have taken the Value “sense of community”. I like splitting my values into different segments or Arenas of my life usually Professional and Personal in an attempt to get a sense of work-life integration or balance and to take a proactive approach to getting or delivering utility from my values or to live my values across both arenas of life. Breaking these Arenas down further into Areas of Focus, allows us to get specific, in this example, I’ve highlighted some areas where I would like to invest my time. I then go one level deeper to outline Goals or Objectives for each area. From here, I can go away and set some more specific goals and actions or arrange my diary in a way that allows me to fulfil my commitments to those values. Another tip is to review your actions, goals and objectives to see if they relate back to any other Values, linking Goals or Objectives to multiple values is a powerful way of ensuring 1. you are more likely to keep your commitment and 2. When you complete your goal or while you are fulfilling your commitment.

Diamond Values-to-Goals Model - Example

If mindmaps aren’t your thing, you might want to set up a worksheet similar to the one below.

Diamond Values-to-Goals Model - Worksheet Example

When looking at how you want to position yourself at work or in the market, you can now use your values (and core/augmented features) to build out your value proposition. Start with a generic statement and then tailor it to fit your context, when you do this be as specific as possible. This will become your “elevator pitch”, below is an example of my first pass, I have also incorporated my core and augmented features in writing my brand proposition.

 We all have a finite amount of time, this method allows us to assess whether the demands on our time relates back to a core value, which should in time lead to better decision making and a more rewarding life.