Bring Your Values to Life and Work: Living and Working Authentically

Beginning to work with new clients is profoundly interesting. Interesting because you get an initial glimpse of how people think about themselves and how they see the world. You hear their concerns and fears, you hear what they want from life, and you get a sense of their emotional intelligence. Providing support and holding space for their self-expression in this initial conversation is creating trust and openness, the basis for future interactions. It’s essentially setting the foundation for this new and exciting relationship and coaching journey.

I find it interesting to hear and learn about what’s important to others - what a person determines to be important, what they value, and what they treasure. Learning and understanding this aspect of a person’s value system becomes a critical piece of who they are and how they use their values to make decisions and journey through life. When you hear what someone values, you hear so much more. In the deepest place of what someone values, needs, and wants from life and work, you gain perspective into a person’s well-being, how they deal with disappointment and with setbacks, and where they are experiencing joy and fulfillment, and satisfaction.

One key belief of mine, something I have learned these past few years, is that true self-awareness is directly related to our lack of judging. When I ask someone to tell me about what they value and whether that value is currently present in their life, all sorts of responses are shared. Often I hear apologies for someone having a particular value. I can also hear someone justify what they perceive as a negative value and why that is still important to them. Coming to a place of acceptance, free from all self-judgment is a critical support others often need from a coach. It helps them to come to their own place of acceptance.

In my last post (you can read it here) I talked about the difference between extremely satisfied and very satisfied. At the very heart of the discrepancy that exists between these two lies a deep and personal understanding of our values and what we want from life and work. To close that gap lies the motivation, commitment, and resilience to live and achieve a life that is reflective of what one treasures. The alignment with what we want and what we have is a component of achieving lasting satisfaction and fulfillment from life and work. This deep calm and happiness leads to living authentically with self and others.

For me, the work in understanding and aligning how we live and work with our values is critical as I support clients. The steps to creating this alignment are the following:

1.     Determine what you value

2.     Rank and reorder what is MOST important

3.     Assess if that value “shows up” for you each day

4.     Choose what needs to change to create greater alignment; more authenticity

Supporting clients as they walk through the steps above is a rewarding process. Witnessing clients become true to themselves is rich. It deepens my understanding that alignment with what we say is important and then living in a way that demonstrates what’s important is an important aspect of self-discovery and growth.