How To Find Your Values and Move Towards Your Destiny

Have you ever felt underappreciated? 

Taken for granted? 

Felt like you got dealt a shitty hand? 

When you align life through a lens of your values, the act of feeling underappreciated, taken for granted, or like you got dealt a shitty hand will rarely happen (if at all). The reason is that we need to be aligned with our values to honor ourselves and what we need. Learning your values is a way out of these types of emotional self-traps. It starts by figuring out your core values and then understanding them very deeply.

Finding Your Values

An important question is: Where do your values come from?

We’re born with core values that are innately stamped into our being. Sadly, they often get blurred out in our youth or stamped out as we age. Why? Because our guardians/schooling systems/parents, etc., infuse their belief structures into us, which is unfortunate. That doesn’t allow people to grow and surround their life with what they should value; it is how the self-traps get set. 

This is why we must know OUR OWN values, not someone else’s. When we use our core values to drive our decisions, life gets a lot less miserable, and all-new doors will show up, taking you to places you didn’t think possible. These are important to look at any time in your life and keep coming back to them. 

Sometimes there can be significant shifts in our existence, which is a great time to redefine our values. So, this isn’t a situation where you do this once and never again; rather, it can be a great exercise to do every 5-10 years.

Finding your values is as simple as getting out a pen and paper and hunting for what’s inside of you that wrap around value words/statements. Here’s a list to get started here. 

Here are some words/statements to serve as an example: 

• kindness
• loyalty
• open-mindedness
• optimism
• perseverance
• I require calm surroundings 
• I stand up for the underdog 
• I need the ability to stand up for justice

Example of Staying True to Your Values

A great example is if you’re working for a company and just feeling pissed off because they don’t appreciate your contribution. Yet, you know you are working your ass off, and you meet and even exceed goals. Suppose a promotion is open, and you’re a perfect candidate, but you get passed over. 

Typically, in this situation, the person will get angrier yet stay where they are in their position and hope something else comes along. Bitterness rises, and then a whole slew of other things start happening. 

But, if you genuinely know your values and get them at a deep level, instead of choosing to stay, you would assess your options to go somewhere that will align with you. This is when jumping and taking risks could be a foundation to gaining progress in life and getting what you need versus settling for something less than OK. Taking such a big step to start a business is more challenging and scary. But, leaping into the unknown to forge a new path can be rewarding. 

Or, even better, you stay for a bit and make a plan while you're still in a position. Therefore, when you jump out, you already have your plan and know precisely what you will do. 

We should not compromise ourselves. Instead of the “what if” game going down the negative path, what if the “what ifs” were positive? Instead of fear, the "what ifs" could be about all the positive potential. Like you see your income shooting through the roof with a significant change. Or, what if that leap into the unknown opens a magnificent door you didn’t even dream was possible? Focusing on the positive "what ifs" is a choice we can make. It's hard to remember, but we all must be reminded of this daily! 

When we are stuck in situations that are not good for us, a good kick in the pants is just what we need. The swift kicks in the ass push us towards our true destiny and get us out of comfort bubbles that aren’t good for our well-being longer-term.

In this scenario, would you ever have thought branching out to do something new was possible if you don’t get pushed to make new (and more aligned) decisions? Remember, the promotion you didn’t get has a core reason why. It’s time to examine everything when things like this come along. 

The failure to get that promotion can kick start a chain of events that can lead you to far greater success than you could imagine.

I know this can happen because I’ve seen it (and it has happened in my own life). 

Summary

We can turn crazy situations like getting skipped for the perfect job and turn it into something extremely positive. We take the shit and turn it into fertilizer to stimulate our growth. 

Values in our life and business are imperative to know for this very reason. You can monitor your life against your values to ensure you stay in total alignment. We can stake them into the ground and create our lives around them. This is how we make realistic, reachable goals where you can see exactly what you need to do and what you need to find.