Knowing your values should be the very first step in setting your goals. Setting goals and making plans without knowing your values is like building a beautiful house without laying the foundation first. Values not only provide the underlying strength to hold everything together, they are also the integral first step of even building at all. A house without a foundation is useless and dangerous–no matter how pretty it is. A life full of action taken with no underlying values simply won’t hold up. If what you are building isn’t based on your values, it will crumble at the first storm. It won’t be strong enough to give protection and at the end of the day, it won’t even be something you loved building.
"Goals are values put into action."
what are values and why do they matter?
Values include our most meaningful ideals, the principles and fundamental truths that influence our choices and give our lives meaning, and the beliefs that inspire us to persevere through adversity. They are the very foundation of our lives, supporting us and giving us the strength to stand. It’s very difficult to build bravery without knowing your values because if you don’t know what you stand for, you’ll constantly be evaluating your choices based on what you think everyone else stands for. It’s also really hard to celebrate if you don’t have a sense of whether or not you are living in a way that you want to celebrate. Focusing on your values reminds you of what’s really important and puts everything into perspective. Knowing your values helps you make better decisions and prioritize, even when under stress. Knowing your values increases your determination and your ability to set and uphold boundaries.
I’d guess that most of us think we know our values, but would be hard-pressed to define them if asked. Yet what could be much more important than knowing what we stand for so that we can live with intention and integrity? What could be more foundational to setting goals than to be really, really clear on what we want our lives to look like? A goal of making a million dollars sounds great, but to what end? If the goal of making a million dollars is to turn around and set it on fire, that’s not really a great goal. Our goals, when made well, should enable us to use our gifts to make the world a better place because they are an extension of our values. Simply put, goals are values put into action.
What values are you putting into action right now? What house are you building and will it stand? Well, what’s at the foundational level of your goals? It’s never too late or wasted time to pause and ask yourself, “why do I have this goal?” Reflect on how the goal connects to your values and how they manifest your values in the world. Another way to think about it is that goals are simply a means to an end, not the end themselves. Again, having a million dollars is not an end–it’s a means to an end and that end has some type of value associated with it. When you make plans and take action, you are working towards a value whether you have stopped to think it through or not. The more clarity you can have about those values and how they impact your goals will help you in the long run. It puts you on a path where you are much more likely to live with integrity and joy because the outcome really isn’t the point, it’s in how well you live according to your ideals. Because at the end of the day, you can’t totally control the outcome–there are so many factors at play. You can really set yourself up for a likely success through good planning and consistent action, but you can’t exactly control whether or not you achieve the final outcome. But you can control whether or not you take a value-based path on the way there and that, to me, is a huge win.
values impact your choices
Because knowing our values not only impact the goals we set, but also the path we take to meet them. You could steal a million dollars or scam an old lady out of her money if you wanted to, but my guess is that you wouldn’t feel very good having met your million dollar goal through that path. There’s often a shortcut to our desired outcome–it will end in the same result but the path there involves making choices we’d rather not make. Stealing, cheating, cutting corners–the usual. But what about the choices that are less clear like missing a party with friends or working on weekends? There isn’t necessarily a clear right answer that the world can give you in times like this. But your values can. They can provide the context and clarity when the world can only say, “it depends.”
I’m putting out a call to action to not just vaguely know your values, but to write them down, know them, and most importantly–live by them. Let them inform your goals so that all that you work towards has meaning and adds value into the world. Don’t just work for a million dollars’ sake–make a million dollars something of value in the world as only you were put there to do. Take time to define your values and then connect each of your goals to your values. If it doesn’t fit, I would seriously think about dropping the goal. Do the work of laying the foundation first so that everything you build has something solid to stand on.