ESTABLISH YOUR VALUES

All people have certain principles and values they believe in and live by. These are the innermost beliefs that distinguish who we are and how we conduct ourselves. Values are of vital importance to us.

They include aspects of life such as family, health, career, and spirituality. Having strong convictions about what we value and keeping them front and center in our lives keeps us balanced and focused on the most important things.

In the long run, focusing on what you value, coupled with solid principles, will help you live a fulfilling life that is far more satisfying than any short-term gain from compromising.

Having these strong convictions benefits you in other ways too. In times of indecision, you can turn to your guiding values and principles as they will give you the framework for making tough decisions. When you're unhappy, you can turn to your values and see if you're leading a life that is consistent with your beliefs.

When you're underachieving, you can turn to your values and gain the motivation to make a focused extra effort.

What You Value Most

Have you ever had trouble making a decision? In business and life, we must make decisions all the time. Many of them involve "gray" areas where more than one solution will work. Indecisiveness results when you are not clear on your values. Once you bring clarity to your values, making decisions becomes easy.

Happiness is having satisfaction and meaning in life. tI is feeling positive emotions, having capacity to recover from negative emotions quickly, and holding a sense of purpose. Time and again people who say they're happy have strong connections with community and with other people. It isn't about having more money; it is more about what resources you have and having meaning and a purpose.

Some of the greatest fulfillment in life has come from people who felt so strongly about their values they were willing to devote their lives and, in some cases, sacrificed their lives to live them. The key is to feel so strongly about your values you are motivated to take action and live by them. Having conviction about something you value, and then committing to living by it every single day, will go a long way toward igniting and inspiring you to build a game plan to get there.

IDENTIFYING WHAT YOU VALUE MOST

Core values are not just preferences or priorities; they are born out of your most deeply held beliefs. They point to what's genuinely important to you and shape-at the deepest level-your behavior, choices, and decisions.

Core values are also a critical part of your purpose. We like to call them "guardrails on the highway of life." They're a big part of answering the question: "Who am I?"

If you haven't clearly defined your values, you'll often feel like you're simply drifting along in life. Instead of basing your decisions on a well-defined internal compass, you'l end up making choices based on emotion, circumstances, and social pressure as you try to fulfill other people's expectations instead of your own.

Trying to be someone else and living without- or in opposition to-your core values is down-right exhausting. It leaves you feeling empty, frustrated, and confused. Conversely, living life in line with your core values brings certainty, direction, and peace. Who couldn't use a little more of that?

Where are you now?

The first exercise will be devoted to identifying and confirming your most important core values. We will also help you analyze how well your life actually reflects those values.

But, before we begin, let's take a look at where you are now.

IDENTIFYING WHAT YOU VALUE MOST

We all have values that guide our lives, but the important question is: Are you consciously aware of them?

Your values and beliefs have been developed and internalized based on life experience. They impact you every day. We will not only help you become consciously aware of your core values but determine whether there are changes you want to make.

When well-chosen core values guide your life you eliminate the internal strife that comes from living in opposition to what's truly important to you.

• Living without clearly defined core values is like steering a ship without a rudder: no direction, no control, no guidance system.
• Living in opposition to your core values is like sailing a boat against the wind: struggle, frustration, little forward momentum.
• Living according to your core values is like sailing a boat again the wind: struggle, frustration, little forward momentum.
• Living according to your core values should mean smoother sailing ahead.

In order to design your proactive game plan it's important to add clarity to your blueprint for a life defined so that we are able to build, test, or reconstruct, your plan and make sure it stays plumb or true.

• Beliefs, and in particular, values, are important because they are the lens through which we see the world around us. They reflect generalizations we have made about the world and they motivate us to choose certain paths and plans for our lives. We tend to move toward what we value and away from what we don't.
• Most importantly, values provide maximum leverage for change in your life.
• If you change your environment, behavior, or capabilities, the transformation may be short-lived. However, if you choose to change your values and beliefs, you are then working at the level of your identity and spirituality.

Values and beliefs are the most powerful area for leveraging a positive change ni your life. As you work through the Plumbline Blueprinting Process, that is exactly what you should be doing.

The good news is that values are not innate. They develop over your lifetime and they can be changed, defined and refined. In time we will focus specifically on roadblocks, detours and limiting beliefs. This is an extension of values and beliefs, but they are ones that are not working well for you. Still, they have somehow become the focus through which you view the world. Our goal is to help you identify those that may be roadblocks to your purpose. We strive to show you how to smooth a path through them and make a positive, long-term change in your life.