What are your values?
and why do they matter?
Values drive our feelings
When you find yourself feeling great about a particular situation, it is because your personal values are being ‘honoured’ in that situation. Similarly, if an event is quite upsetting, it is likely that your values are being confronted.
Values impact us all the time
Values are personal. Not everyone will react in the same way to the same situation, because we all have different values.
We are happier when the world conforms to our values.
Employees will be happier when their personal values align with an organisation’s values. When there is a mismatch between an organisation’s values and our own personal values, it won’t matter how much we try, we probably will never be happy there.
When your values are similar with people around you, you will like them better. When our values differ then we are more likely to clash. This is true for colleagues, neighbours or family members.
Get clear about values and find more contentment
Sometimes we are unaware of our values – thinking, perhaps, that everyone cares about things in the same way. Or we forget what our personal values are and that can lead us to feel like victims of circumstance as our values-inspired emotions follow world events and other people’s behaviour.
Clarifying your values will help you understand the ups and downs of your feelings in response to the external world. Knowing your values can help you get some perspective and even de-personalise some events and help you create more stability for yourself.
It would also be helpful to remind your colleagues at work, and others around you, about personal values so they too can understand and appreciate their own feelings of joy or frustration.
Coaches, it is always useful to help your coachees clarify their values and to remember them so they too can understand their own responses to situations.
When stress increases, wellbeing cannot be optionalHow can we listen and find common ground when it’s so loud and divisive?