There was a long period in my life where it seemed to me I wasn’t reaching my goals.  What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was out of alignment with my values, so reaching my goals was next to impossible.  And why I didn’t realize this was because I didn’t even know what a value was!  Oh sure, I knew the ‘value’ of something I was buying:  was I getting a good value on the new car or was that a good value for the dinner I wanted.  Stuff like that.  However, I had no idea that lacking my own personal values was causing me to be so unhappy and never attaining what I wanted (aka my goals).

OK, so what is a value?  Well you know me, I like to pull out the thesaurus.  When it comes to your personal values, some of the words that come up are: importance, worth, significant, and meaning.

A personal value can easily be defined as your preferences.  I have a very high value for freedom and fun and, yes, those are my preferences.  Maybe you can relate.  I like to have fun and when I have fun, I feel really good… and since I like to feel good, fun, therefore, is important to me.  I also like not being told to do things – one of the reasons I decided to quit working for someone else and go out on my own.  I get to create the freedom I want (and really, ultimately need).

If you are having a hard time getting results and reaching your goals, check in with your values.  Chances are your values are not being met… or, like I used to be, you really don’t even know what you value.

So to give you an idea of what values are, here is a short list:

• Compassion
• Comfort
• Ease
• Energy
• Faith
• Freedom
• Fun
• Intellect
• Love
• Mindfulness
• Perfection
• Professionalism
• Respect
• Sharing
• Thoughtfulness

Personal values are internal and act as a reference for what is good, beneficial, important and useful for us… no one else.  They generate behavior.  For instance, let’s say your top three values are:  fun, ease and love.  You have decided you want to get in shape.  If you incorporate your top three values of fun, ease and love into your workout plan, you can bet your behavior is going to bring you success.  You would find something you really have fun doing like taking a dance class, that fits into your schedule with ease, and you show your love for yourself (yes, you can love yourself just like you love the others in your life) by committing to going regularly.

Another example: you are a new business owner and trying to figure out how to run your business.  You value compassion, professionalism and respect.  You would set up your business by creating systems that support your top three values.  To satisfy your value of compassion, you would speak kindly to your prospective and/or current clients.  Your value of professionalism would show up in being timely with invoices, paying bills and returning calls/emails.  Your value of respect shows your clients that you have a high opinion of them and you genuinely care and are authentic.  As a business owner, these all will lead to prospective clients getting to know, like and trust you.  Not only are you able to help more people, but you are able to generate more income all while honoring your values.  It’s a win/win situation all around.

Once you know your values, your life becomes simply the best with grace and ease and you find that you are in a flow.  You get what you want quickly and your goals get accomplished faster.  Everything comes easy.  And one other thing happens, you know what goals you want to work on and how you are going to reach them!

You know I love to hear your success stories, and this one is no different.  I would love for you to shoot me an email or share on my Facebook page.  I always love that because then you get to help others just by sharing your success!  Also, feel free to share your thoughts, insights and revelations below!