I recently had an MRI done on my knee. The doctor wanted to see what was going on in there. I was having some pain and once he could see what was going on in there, he knew what to prescribe to solve the problem.
I sort of wondered, do we ever take an MRI on our value system, do we know what’s going on in there? I talked to people all over the world and asked them what their values are, and while most people know what they stand for, they have to stop and think about it, they have to figure it out and I wonder sometimes, if they’re figuring out the values of where they want to be or where they are or whether they are looking at their actions and what they do and then interpreting values from that, I think we should be able to articulate our values, very quickly, very sincerely because we thought about it, because we know what they are, because when we are that familiar with our core values then when we make decisions, we make better decisions if we based these decisions on our values.
So how do we do that? Well, one of the steps is to look at other people we admire, heroes in our life, people that have done amazing things and look at what their strong attributes are. Make a list, pick three people and list all the attributes of those three people. And then look at those attributes and compare yourself and say, how do I rate? Am I one, low, ten, high, 8, pretty high and rate yourself on those same attributes.
Then go back through that list and pull for yourself a list of values that you believe describes who you are and who you want to be. After you put that list together, trim it down to three values, three values that fit together, that work together, three values that describe how you interact with other people, how you treat them. And also three values in how you treat and act towards yourself.
And a value can be interpreted differently in how you act towards yourself as how you act towards others. I’ve done this process many times with groups around the world. I’ve been doing it for myself for years. My three values are integrity, respect and significance. And I look at those three values in how I treat myself and I look at those three values in how I interact with other people as well. And when I need to make a decision, I try to always come back to those three values.
Being accountable in our life to our self is ultimately being accountable to our core values. Create your own core value. Know your value statement. Be able to share it with others and most importantly, hold yourself accountable to it. It’s not always easy but the return is worth the effort.
