What Do You Truly Value?

“Action expresses priorities.” — Gandhi

What do you value?

Can you name the things and people in your life you love most?

An audit of your life and what you do daily will tell you what you truly value.

You may be surprised by what you find out.

Auditing your life may seem daunting and unnecessary. However, it is neither. We can perform reviews or audits daily and weekly in order to understand what we truly value and spend our time on.

When we notice what we spend our time doing, we can alter how we spend our time living our desired values even more. What we do spotlights what we value.

How we spend our time is the best way to deepen our values and live a life that serves us and others best.

Lesson to Learn

How we spend our minutes, days, and weeks shows what we genuinely appreciate most.

When we notice how we spend our time, it indicates to us what our lived values are. If I say I value family, friends, and coworkers, I should review how much time I spend with them.

What we actually do is what we truly value.

What is the quality of my interactions? How could I deepen this value of caring for people? What is my work? What is the best use of my time while working?

A simple audit of how we spend time, as well as the quality and quantity of time spent, with any stated value, will give us deeper insights into our lives and desired behaviors.

Let your actions express your priorities.

Answer for Me

I am striving to be intentional about my lived values. Do I live what I say I value?

Each day is an opportunity for me to live my values. By identifying what they are, I can hold myself accountable for living them.

When I plan my day, do I do the things that reaffirm my values?

Preparing for my day and being intentional about how I live my day helps me live my values.

At the end of the day, I do an informal audit of how I spent my day.

Did I live it the way I wanted to? What can I learn from how I spent my day?

Did I live my values today? And finally, what can I do differently tomorrow?

This process allows me to learn and celebrate my positive actions that demonstrated my values.

Action

Take the time to list your values.

They can also be statements that show who you are. Affirmations about who you are can help you live your values. Are you a serving leader, caring parent, devoted team member, and constant learner?

What other values can you create that will allow you to put into action who you are and want to be.

Start your day by determining what you will devote your time to.

How will you live your values throughout your day?

Be intentional about living your values each day.

Daily Habits

Daily routines are critical to living your values.

When you plan, exercise, or meditate to begin your day, you demonstrate that you want to live an intentional life.

You get to choose how you will live your day.

When you review or audit your day, you can assess how well you are doing and make adjustments for tomorrow.

We all live our values. What we do is the best indicator of what we truly value.

Daily lived values display who we are now and offer us our best hope to living our future in the way we most want to live.

To learn more about leadership visit me at www.macny.org.

To get a copy of my book Present-Future Leader go to www.amazon.com.