Ep 50: Finding your values - Part 2 - wrapping words around your values
What exactly are your values?
In this episode we'll chat about the three places you can start looking for your values, including but going beyond values assessment tools.
And we'll talk about how to make action based values statements that you can actually put into practice in your business and life.
Today's episode is part 2 of a 3 part series on finding your values...or at least making a start, because finding your values is really an ongoing thing. If you haven't, I suggest checking out part 1 first.
Let's dive in.
Links, resources & mentions
Finding your values part 1, part 2, part 3
Building a values based business workbook
James-Olivia Chu Hillman Podcast Interview Ep39
Episode Transcript
Laura Jean 0:05
Hello, hello and welcome back to this episode, another episode of The dietitian values Podcast. Today we're talking part two of our three part series on finding your values. And in this part we're gonna get into the nitty gritty of actually finding your values. So part one, we developed a shared understanding we defined values as the characteristics that underlie our attempts to get our needs met. And I clarified some of the things that I hold around values. So, if you haven't checked that out, go back check that episode out. I'll drop the link in the show notes. And today I want to talk about the next step. So now we know what values are, we are on the same page. Let's go looking. now finding your values and getting clarity around your values is kind of like the foundation of my business. So I could talk about this for a very long time. Today, I'm going to talk just about three places or spaces, where you can find your values or that might have some information for you around your values.
So let's dive in. Number one word lists, so you've seen those values, word lists, and I have one that I did up for a presentation, so I will drop that one in the show notes too, so you can check it out. Because like I shared, last week, I've got a bit of a difference around what values what I hold as things that are values - verbs versus nouns. And so sometimes in values lists, I find things that I'm like, I don't think that's a value and clearly that's my opinion, you know, and from my perspective and my experience, so you don't have to agree, you can find your own value lists, that's all good. But I will drop a PDF of one that I've done and used the past and I've done and refined it a bit. It's not exhaustive. There are so many things that can be values, but it's a good jumping off point, a good starting point. So I'll put that in the show notes too. So word lists, so values, Assessment tools and things. The other thing actually, I will put in the show notes so clearly gonna be lots of resources in the show notes. This is a resource action heavy piece, I'll put a link to a worksheet that I've got, which is around finding your values. And inside that there is a link to some specific values based exercise including one which is like an online kind of values assessment which is freakishly accurate for the little amount of information you give it. So it's a personal values assessment, so I'll link to the workbook which has that if you want to go a bit deeper. me I like to do all the things and like you know, do all different quizzes and word lists and different assessments and activities and then bring it together. You might like just to do like one and done or you might even not even like them. So what are they, they're words lists, just like literally lists of different words. And the aim is to read through the words and to pull out the ones that resonate for you. And you start with about 10 ish. And then you refine them. So when I'm using a word list, which I'll talk about next, that's actually after let's let's talk about where we can find our words or where we can find our values.
So we can find them in those giant list of words, just reading through and writing down all the ones that really are meaningful for you. And what we're looking for here is not just things that are important, but the things that we really want to drive our actions, drive how we show up. so I shared, i think in the last episode, something that's important to me is like independence and autonomy but it's not on my values list anymore because I've done some work around that and decoupling from some ideas and programming that made me think it was and so things can still be super important, but it's really about like, you know, what's the hill you want to die on? What is the thing like if you had to choose it, so sometimes what you can do is if you know some things that are like really truly your values, like they're really core things, then you have all these other things that are important as well. You can kind of cross cross check them like is that as important as say, for example, one of my values is connection is independence, as important as connection? no connection trumps independence, and it's not about creating a hierarchy of values because we don't want hierarchies. We've got enough of those. What we want is just a way to kind of really get clear because sometimes when you read those things, it's like, well, I want to be all, well maybe not all of those things, some of them are clear nos but there's often some of those ones it's kind of like you know, if you think about friends, you've got best friends, really good friends, you got people you're friendly with and you've got kind of acquaintances. And so when it comes to values, it's like, yep these are my besties my core values and these people I like to hang out with as well. However, you know, they're not necessarily your core values. Probably should think through a better analogy. I'll get on it. So word lists - looking at different lists of words and finding, finding words that resonate and you know, pull out as many as you'd like, and then work on the refining piece if you find that easier. So that's the first place we can find our values.
The second place we can find our values is in our actions. How do you act? How do you show up right now? What are the things that you prioritise when you make choices about how you act and how you show up. so if you're thinking about it, what you can think about is the places where we play our values out the places that are important, the things that we value, so places and spaces like maybe family, friends, different relationships you have so if you're a parent your relationship with your kiddos, if you're an adult, if you have a significant other relationships, a partner, you know really great friends your own parents, siblings, and look at how you show up in those spaces. Look into your actions. And in your actions you'll find your values, well, you'll find somebody's values, you'll find some values in there and whether they're yours or not, is another piece for us, which we'll talk about in part three. So look at like how do you show up? How do you show up for your kids, for yourself, for your partner, for your parents or your siblings, for your friends? What are the ways you would describe yourself? What would you want people to describe you as or ask people.
So how you can find it in your actions is you can just reflect yourself, you can think about describing yourself like I've talked about this exercise before which you can do where you imagine it's your 80th birthday or your funeral, if that's too morbid go 80th birthday, not that I think there's anything really morbid about imagining your funeral but it doesn't jive for everyone. So, imagine either your funeral or your 80th birthday and write a little two paragraph speech or two paragraph mention that a family member might say, your friends might say, a work colleague or community organisation you're part of and just write down what they say. And then inside there what they say about you, the life that you lived. So we just basically what you want people to say about how you showed up really for your own life. So write those out and then go and search in there for your values because what will come up if you're thinking about how you want other people to describe how you showed up, you can find the values in it. So you can just reflect you can do little exercises like that from yourself. So you can pull out those values wordsor you can ask people. you can ask five friends or some important people in your life. What words would you use to describe how I show up, how I treat people, how I think. what would you say my values are? What words would you use to describe what I do or how I do things - how I parent, how I show up at work or whatever it might be. So you can ask people and then in the statements or the words that they say you can find your values. So I've done all these exercise because like I said, I like to do all the things and it's really interesting to see what comes up and it's really interesting to see how the same themes come up. so I did the one where I asked five close friends to just list, I think it was just sort of to list five words or just to describe me or describe how I show up basically, one of them actually said, one person said that I was really values driven, so that was really cool. This was about,I did that in 2018 I still remember it cuz it was really impactful because it was so interesting to see the same themes, the same things come up because the values that we're acting into are in our actions already. So have a look for those. So, that's number two, that's the second place that you can find your values.
The third place you can find your values might be a little bit more, let's say uncomfortable, or there might be some disomfort around this one, is in your judgments. Yes, your judgments, your judgments are for you. Our judgments of other people and our judgments of ourselves have so much information for us. And I went through a phase where I was trying to, where I had this kind of goal of not being so judgmental. And what I tried it for a while but it didn't really work. What was actually so much more helpful was instead of trying to not judge was to actually reframe it and to realise that my judgments were information for me. So when I judge someone for parenting in a certain way or not parenting in a certain way that was just giving me information about what I thought was super important. And in that I can find my values. And it was really helpful, but also it was really such a more compassionate way to think about it because I was over there judging myself for judging. If anyone's tried to stop judging you end up judging yourself for judging! And when I could reframe that and just be like, Hmm, this actually isn't about me being a quote unquote bad person and being mean to other people. It's actually just me, almost like verbalising what I see around me, where I see other people acting in ways that aren't aligned with my values. And that's just information for me. It's just a reminder of what's important to me. And it's an opportunity to assess relationships, is this a relationship I still want to be part of is it my judgement and observation or is it just me holding people in contempt because that can happen too. So there's lots of information in our judgements, including our values. So what do you judge people about? Let's share, hey, let me know. Let yourself know. You know, have a think about it, reflect on it, like where do you judge people or what are the judgments or the way you know, the patterns that come up? What information is in there for you around what's important to you around your values? And so you know, I've shared it on podcast before, but I went down like a big sustainability, simple living rabbit hole for a long time and and in the early stages of me making changes I was very judgy. And really what that was was just information around what I was getting clear on was super important to me around the values I wanted to act into. And so I look back at that now and go hmmm. And most of it was inernal, I'm an internal judger, it's like, in my head, I do lots of things in my head. So it wasn't necessarily me judging people verbally like you shouldn't be doing that. So you know, but it was more in my head and, I look back on those kind of times or like when I became a parent, and one of the choices I've made around parenting or around you know, raising kids and sustainability is around using cloth nappies. When it was early days it wasn't like I blame-judged people, but I noticed it like I noticed me, not judging people for not doing it but making statements like 'it's not that hard' or 'you clean up poo anyway' like making these statements, which were judgments. I look at it now but really what those judgments were were information for me. They were sometimes trying to convince myself, I suppose, but also just information around yeah, this is really important to me. And I think just because culturally the messages we have we often think about what's important to us, we want the people in the spaces where we are, you know, people that are important to us, for what's important for us to be important to them too, it actually doesn't have to be, tangent let's not go down it. judgments, so much information for ourselves and so much information around our values. So think about what you judge people on. can feel a little bit uncomfortable, but also can be a fun place to mine for information around your values.
So they're the three places, we're gonna talk about a couple more things but I'll just recap. The three places or spaces where you can get started on finding value. So one is just this giant list of words and values exercises, like dig into them. Play around with them, there's online ones, like I said I'll include that workbook in the shownotes. Number two is in your actions. How are you acting right now? you can reflect on it. You can imagine so you can do or you can do some of that kind of like you know, what would you want people to say about how you show up, as a parent or as a professional, health professional not as in under the status quo standard of professionalism. How do people, people that are in the same community, where you live, how would you want them to describe you and so you can do it right now, like you could you could imagine it now or you can use a birthday slash funeral example exercise. Or you can simply ask people, How would you describe me? What would you say my values are? What are the ways or what are the characteristics you see, and how I show up in our friendship or in spaces that are important to me. So you can find them in your actions by those three different ways. And then the third place is our judgments. So I don't know if that reframe landed for you. But it can be a really powerful place to find out our values. It can have a lot of information for us around what we value, what's important to us and our values. So let's dig into those judgments and feel free to share.
Okay, so they're the places we can find our values. So what do we do now? We've got these words, we've got these ideas about how we show up all these examples that people have shared about what they think about us, about our actions and how we show up. So you've got words usually when it comes to this now, I talked last week around values being verbs. They're things that we do, they're how we act, how we show up, the values that are nouns, are kind of useless. Like, it's like, you're not just a thing. Like, if you've got a value around kindness, it's like, it's not. I mean, you know, you can use affirmations like I am kind, but it's like, what is kindness? How does that show up for you? So the next step, once you have your values, your list of words, one is to refine them. There's a couple of ways you can do that. You can do that kind of like cross checking and deciding which ones are the super core values, you're really only like you want to bring it down because if we keep creating action statements, the reason is one is because generally there are things that are more important than others. And so there is that kind of we don't want to be trying to create these giant action statements that have all the superfluous things that are important to you but not your core values in it. So really refining it down. So you can just kind of play around with getting it down to like, which ones your core ones are. You can also group them in categories. So you might find you have words like let's say kindness, compassion, care, things like that, that could be grouped in a category so they could they could kind of be words that come together because they're trying to tell you a little bit like their theme. Let's say. Like, for instance, you might have ones around fairness and justice and equity and equality. And treating people in a kindness could be in that respect. You might have values around wisdom, like learning, curiosity, things like that. They could be I'm just grouping things in like what would align with my values basically, around how those things would be grouped, but they can be different for you too. So thinking about the words, because you'll end up with a reasonably good size word list, we want to narrow it down. So maybe it's getting clear on which ones are your most important ones. on a recent podcast, and I'll put that in the show notes too Brene Brown did one around finding your values and she talks about just getting clear on what would be your two, two values two kind of core values and so that's an interesting way to really like narrow right down. So that could be something you might might like to have a listen to, or check that one out. So yeah, narrowing it down to as least kind of words or categories of words as possible within the range you have. So around the kind of three to five mark is usually a good place to start.
And then the next step is we want to turn those values into action statements because we want to know where you want to know. I mean, I like to know too, because I'm curious, and a little bit nosy. But it doesn't actually impact on how I show up. But you want to know how your values kind of give you that information on how to show up. And so I'll share some examples of for you around how I've gone through that process because sometimes I think examples or I don't know I find examples helpful. So if you find examples helpful too. I just thought I would talk about a little bit about the process for myself. Very briefly. So we get the big words and then we, sorry, we get the big list and then we get our words out. So for me, my like top 10 ish, so you know I've always done it sort of around that top 10 ish words. Adaptability, so currently of course, because if you listen to part one values change so currently, it's like adaptability. It's kind of like flexibility, but it's kind of like about being I suppose open to possibilities would be more words I would wrap around that. adaptability is the word that kind of matched but it's really about being open up to possibilities, care and caring compassion. Trust, fairness, respect, continuous learning, connection, sustainability and making a difference. So they're the ones and then I grouped them so adaptability and sustainability, they group together for me, caring, compassion and trust group together connection kind of itself because it's like seriously, it's one of my like key core values, fairness and respect bringing them together and then kind of continuous learning and making a difference because one of the reasons I like to learn is to be able to do things differently to do things myself differently, but also making a difference in the greater space as well. It probably links into adaptability well, so they do all kinds of correlate, but if I was kind of bringing them in that's kind of sort of like almost five kind of categories to bring them into. And so then how do I go from those words to actually like, what does that even mean? What does it mean to me to be caring and compassionate and to build trust? What does it mean to act into the value of like fairness and respect? What does it mean like, why do I care about continuous learning and making a difference? Like what does that mean? So what first, the first step is to get them you know, narrow them down, group them together, get clear on that.
Another step you can add in, it's up to you where you do this, but is to really define what those words so like I just did with adaptability. So, adaptability, you could define that in lots of different ways. But what I just defined it is about being open to possibilities being able to kind of like yeah, be open to things being different and how I would change and move with that rather than resist it. It's also includes things like acceptance as well. Sustainability, to me is partly about the environment. It's just about resources and energy, knowing that there's some things that are finite. finit, finite, finite. That's the word. Oh my gosh, I don't know if anyone else does this. But when I speak, particularly with words like that, like I actually picture the word in my head because I've done a lot of like, a lot of words I come to through reading. And so then sometimes there's I'm trying to, like I was just literally picturing that word and try to pronounce it a finite. Anyway, some words that aren't part of my daily lexicon, just tangent, let's not go too far down it. So sustainability. So really, some resources are finite. And so it's about using them sustainably like using them in a way and so that's to do with the environment, but it's also to do with my own personal energy levels and me as a resource as well. So I really encourage you to think about those words what they actually mean to you. Because I could say sustainability is my value and somebody else could say sustainability is their value, but the way we act into those words is so different. And I actually had a super great conversation about this, or a part of my conversation on podcasts with James Olivia Chu Hillman, we kind of talked around this. So if you want to listen to that, I'll put the link to that one in the show notes too. It's gonna be so many links in the show notes. It's going to be like, you know, a whole kind of experience by itself. continuous learning and making a difference. So yeah, so just like thinking about what do those means of fairness like, what does that mean? Like does fairness mean divvying things up equally? To me, a space of fairness and respect is a space or a place or an opportunity for people to be seen known and heard as they want to be. And so that's really different than maybe somebody else's, like fairness might be that everyone gets the equal, gets an equal punishment, you know? So it's really important to define these words and wrap some more words around your words a bit. So then you can come up with some action statements, so I'll share my values if you've never checked them out. They are on my website. And hopefully they are clear in in how I act in what I do. But you know, an example, if you've been following or like a good exercise, if you've been following along for a while, on the podcast or over on Instagram or hanging out with me in working together, you might think about like what values would you use to describe me and my actions and then cross check it like does it kind of meet up with what I say I do, or what my values are. And same for you, you can you get your list of values and then you can kind of cross check it, you can look at it is this showing up in my actions and then of course, that's what we want to be doing. And that's what we'll talk a little bit more about next week.
So my my values, doing things differently to create fair and just spaces for all bodies and all humans. So that brings together the value of fairness of respect of making a difference and doing things differently. It also brings in my values of compassion to creating those spaces where compassion is part of that. My another value conservation and wise use of resources for myself, my community and the environment as a whole. I purposely left out the word sustainability because I think how that's defined or what people think of initially when that word comes up is very different than what I mean by it. So while sustainability sums up what I mean in that value, it's really about Yeah, conserving and using things wisely. And resources being myself my time, my energy and also the resources of my community and the environment as a whole. So that's like really bringing that value into like, the actual actionable piece of it. Like it's telling me how to show up to conserve and use resources wisely in myself in my community in the environment, and that is like a really tangible thing and so much more information than if I was just to say sustainability is one of my values, like you get so much more out of that. And so this is what I really encourage you to do for yourself to pull it out. Like how do you act into your values. so these action statements should give you a really clear picture of how you act into it. Now remembering from last week, last session, values are aspirational as well as actionable so it doesn't mean if you're not doing this, you know, that you're not you know, you know, doing you know, you've got to do it all. It is also something we aspire to. Seeking and creating new opportunities to develop, grow and connect to others. So that's about connection. It's also about that adaptability piece, and a bit is around sustainability. And it's around my continuous learning and making a difference. So lots of my values are wrapped up. So you can have action statements for individual those individual words and categories or you might have some of your values that are so so deeply entwined with how you want to be and who you want to be as a human that they just show up all through and I find with mine connection particularly is one that just is in all of that, every single one of my values, I can find connection in there and my final value cultivating spaces of care connection and collaboration. So they are my values and that is how I kind of step through it. So have a you know, that's just to give you an example.
So think about you what you want to do. So start with finding your values either in those word lists, in your actions or in your judgments. Narrow them down into a shorter list of words or categories of words, to find those words like wrap more words around those words, get really clear on what it is. if you're saying compassion is a value for you what does that look like when you show compassion to others and when you show compassion to yourself. because again, remembering from last week, part one, our values are also not just things that we tend towards others, but we also turn them towards ourselves. So getting, wrapping more words around your words, so you're really clear on how that looks, and then turning them into action statements. Now, this isn't a short process. This is a long process. I've worked with humans and coaching where I would spend a three months kind of timeframe working together just getting clear on values. You can spend a long time you could spend a little time, it really depends on how you work and what's more supportive for you. For me, I'm constantly tweaking, so I like to get the words, the words around it to get real clarity around that, so I"m a bit of a nitpicker on the words, and then it's tweaking. So like I said, I used to have sustainability now. But now I've switched it and shifted it to like conservation. So it's tweaking and playing around with the words because as you talk about your values more as you use them as a tool, and you're referring to them more often you can find where there's like little rubs or little spots or it's like that's not quite right. Well, that's not exactly what I meant. If you want to, you know if you want some feedback or you want somebody to eyeball these or to support you around that then you know I'm here. Reach out via DM or email I'm always happy to take a look at what you come up with and, or if you're trying to find a specific word, I love words, so if you are trying to find specific words and you kind of know like what you want to talk about around the thing, then feel free, we can flesh it out together as well. And of course it is what I do in my work as well. But I'm also happy to support you around going through this DIY experience. So that is what I wanted to share today. I hope that's useful. Like I said, there's going to be a shit tonne of stuff dropped in the show notes that you can come back to or that you can dig into a little bit. And particularly one of those things will be the workbook that I've put together which you can sign up for and it's free. But you do have to put your email address in to get it and that goes through and has links to a few different exercises. But I'll also put everything that I've mentioned I'll put in there. Questions, comments, concerns, anything I've missed or where I've missed the mark. Please feel free to reach out. And next session part three, we're going to talk about really getting clear on whose values, on what is coming up around your values and you know, are they actually there, are you finding them in what you're up to? Okay, so until next time, bye for now.
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