How to Identify Your Core Values

According to Forbes, more than ½ of Americans are unfulfilled at work. Nicholas Pearce calls attention to the fact that the word “career” comes from the French term for racetrack. We often talk about our careers in corporate as feeling like we are on a hampster wheel, going no where fast. 

It's as if we are chasing an invisible finish line.

I am so curious about the root of the unfulfillment. I’ve come to the conclusion that most of us are feeling unfulfilled at work because we have tied our ability to achieve significance to our full time job.

Significance is one of the 5 needs that Maslow identifies as something that we all desire. One of the ways that we look to achieve significance is through our career or the work that we do.

We climb the ranks expecting to feel fulfilment and satisfaction when we arrive. 

The problem: in this model we’re more focused on what we can get out of life vs what we give to this life.

I have found that the people that we consider most successful, at some point had to shift their focus from their own accomplishments to simply determining how they can give more to others or serve them better. 

This is the mindset that leads to true significance and impact. 

The mindset of service.

The service based mindset is one that takes your energy and focus off of what you can get from the world and focuses more on answering the question of what was I put on this earth to do?

Now, a question like this can lead to an unnecessary feeling of overwhelm. 

I’ve found that it is actually quite simple. Your goal in life should be to live a life that is reflective of your values.

One of the most straightforward ways to do this is through the rocking chair test. I want you to take a moment and imagine your 80 year old self, you’re sitting on your porch in your rocking chair sipping on some sweet tea. You think back on your life. What are the things in your life you’re most proud of?

Is it your career? Your family? Your business? Your passion? Your friendships?

When it comes to identifying our values, there is a temptation to confuse means values with ends values. 

I may say that I value my 9-5 job, but I actually value the security that my 9-5 job affords me. In this case, the 9-5 is the means to the end (security). When I allow myself to believe that my value is the job, rather than the security it provides, that is when I begin to tie my worth and fulfillment to the job itself. By recognizing it is the security that I value, I can detach myself from a particular job.

When we prioritize the means value and fail to identify the root of why we value that thing, the end value, we set ourselves up to live our lives misaligned with our end value. This not only causes a feeling of unfulfillment, but also a feeling of confusion because we have failed to identify the end value we are looking to live out.

Ultimately, to begin identifying your core values is to get really honest about how you want to be remembered and then challenge yourself to see if you’re actually living a life that aligns with that.

yours in progress,

Anisa-Naomi