We were experiencing a crisis in parenting goals and conflict in our marriage as we co-fostered a teenager. Our support worker sat us down one afternoon and helped us to understand what was going on. It had to do with our values, he said and how we prioritised and projected ours in raising someone else’s child. This crisis seemed to centre around whether this young person we were co-parenting, chose to adopt or dismiss our values. This teenager had to weigh up not only our values, but also the values of his parents and his peers and decide what he would dismiss or adopt. Tough gig, I reckon!
How many of us ever really sit down and define what our core values are and whether we need to reconsider which one’s we prioritise-let alone project? Life Coaching experts Patrick Williams and Diane S. Menendez promise that the meaning we seek and satisfaction we long for, is found when we align our work and life with our core values. In order to thrive and experience full satisfaction we must be aligned. This starts with identifying one’s core values.
I had a spiritual conversion in my mid-thirties. My values were overhauled and realigned as I sought to live my life by the values of my family of faith. I had been raised in a family whose values were aligned with a traditional religious community, so my realignment often involved rediscovering my roots. The biggest overhaul of values involved throwing out values I had absorbed and prioritised unconsciously from the media and culture I was raised in.
Some of the refining that has occurred in recent years has been identifying which of my core values are driven by fear and which by purpose and meaning? Which have been driven by the need to please others and which by the need to please a Holy audience of one? The biggest joy has been ‘discovering’ or ‘rediscovering’ the me I was born to be before I tried to be someone else.
Identifying and choosing our core values are like finding the true North on a compass. Redefining them feels like getting rid of negative magnetic interference and recalibrating this true north. Finding this will help to find direction for our life and choices.
I will be the first to admit, surfacing and naming my core values has not been all that simple. Most times I am not even aware how they direct my life; but they do direct my life in both habit and action. It’s times of crisis, like our fostering co-parenting one, that I realise the importance of examining them and considering realignment and recalibrating them. It is also in times of disquiet that I pause and consider what habits I need to change if I want to align my life and work to my core values.
Whose values guide your life? When was the last time you identified the core values that direct yours? Maybe the disquiet you feel or the crisis of belief is in invitation to realign or recalibrate and discover your true North.
As Jennifer Cummings says “Knowing my true north gives me the courage to focus my energy where I believe it should be, not according to what is popular or pleasing to others.”
Photo by Honey Yanibel Minaya Cruz on Unsplash.com
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