Work and career choices can be based more on our personal aspirations and goals. Yet, even with this realisation, it is still possible to find ourselves driven by other forces, not knowing, or losing sight of what really matters.
Knowing what matters can mean the difference between making intentional choices versus being carried along by the winds of time. Ever felt this way?
Personal Mastery
Awareness of our own values and beliefs can provide an internal compass for navigating life’s journey, helping us to become more self-directed. This frees us to pursue goals that have purpose and meaning and helps us to respond to life’s challenges more effectively.
When we are other-directed our choices and behaviour reflect the values of others – both in the past and present.
Personal mastery entails living life from a creative rather than a reactive viewpoint. It means approaching your life as a creative work. Personal mastery is a process of clarifying what is important, figuring out your desired destination and putting together a plan to take you there.
What are Values?
Values are mental constructs about the worth or importance of people, viewpoints, activities or things. They provide us with a deep sense of meaning and purpose in our daily lives as expressed through our thoughts, emotions and actions.
For most people, values are unconscious motivators. They often act like a “back seat driver” of decisions and behaviour. In summary you create your reality through making choices – conscious and unconscious.
A key characteristic of successful people is that their values are conscious motivators – i.e. successful people know what their values are and why they are important to them.
Self-Generational Change
Problems, challenges, or pressures for change can cause stress or anxiety. However, what we experience as problems or challenges may actually be opportunities for personal growth. The source of discomfort is the state of uncertainty or “not knowing”.
This state of uncertainty is the difference between where we are now and where we would like to be – a “creative tension”. To ease creative tension we need a structure or map to help find our way forward.
Knowing your true values helps you to understand where you have come from, where you are now and where you are going. Values foster change, by identifying what is important.
Want to take stock?
Mindinsight can help you identify your values and explore how aligned your current lifestyle is with your values. This puts you in a great position to consider intentional changes as you continue along life’s journey.
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
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