Your values
What do you yearn for?
Knowing your values and aligning them with your financial decisions is part of the road map to help you live well.
Completing your money story may have helped you understand why you spend the way you do, or why you find it hard to follow through with your good intentions - but your past experiences with money don’t need to control your future. If you take time to explore your values, you can determine what is really important to you when it comes to money.
Your values are the principles that guide your life and who you are. It’s easy to confuse goals with values. A helpful analogy is thinking of life like a map:
- Destinations = your goals
- Compass directions = your values
Your values help you navigate life’s experiences and determine if you’re moving in the right direction towards your goals. They help you make key decisions, stay motivated and keep grounded in times of distress.
Why values?
The world will try to tell you what’s important with advertisements in magazines, television and on your social media feeds. The key is to stop and listen to your own inner voice telling you what you really value. As author of The Happiness Trap, Russ Harris says, “true success is living by your values.”
Discovering your values
There are many ways to discover your values. Everyone will have different priorities, and these might change over time. For example, you might value relaxation and time with family. Or you might value working hard and being prudent with money.
Step 1: Reflect
Choose one (or more) of these activities to help reflect on your values:
Look back
Spend time with the following questions.
Identify times in your life when you were:
- Happiest
- Most proud
- Most fulfilled and satisfied
These are often called ‘mountaintop experiences’ - peak moments of our lives.
Write or draw one or two of these times on a piece of paper.
It might also help you to think back on moments where you felt really angry, as these might help identify when your values were compromised.
Look around
Think of three people you most admire. What are the common qualities of the people you admire? The values listed below might help.
What are the major roles you have in your life (e.g. parent, partner, student, teacher)? What word would you place before each of these roles to describe you (e.g. hardworking teacher, loving parent)?
Look ahead
If you knew you only had a few years to live and you’re not sick – what would you do with your time? Who would you spend it with?
Imagine that you’re 80 years old and looking back on your life as it currently is. Finish these sentences:
- I spent too much time worrying about...
- I spent too little time doing…
- If I could go back in time, I would...
What stood out for you after doing one of these activities?
Step 2: Value shortlist
Tick the values that are important to you now.
| Values checklist | ||
Step 3: Key values
Which values stand out for you the most?
Step 4: Check in
Look at your list of values - what do you notice? They are yours, so be proud of them! Your values are fluid and will change over time.
Step 5: Make them memorable
You’ve done the hard part, now it’s about creating reminders of your values in places you’ll see them. You could do this by:
- Writing them on a stone and carrying it in your pocket or putting it on the windowsill
- Drawing them on your own “coat of arms”
- Adding them into your phone and setting reminders throughout the week
- Writing them on cards and putting them somewhere you’ll regularly see them - like your bathroom mirror or car dashboard.
Money and values
Aligning your personal values with your financial decisions improves your chances of gaining peace and satisfaction.
Complete the following sentences for purchases or financial decisions you’ve made recently - either one you were happy with or one you would do differently next time.
Example (positive purchase)
"This week I bought a gift for a friend and I was really satisfied about it because what I gave was thoughtful and a special way to acknowledge our friendship."
This week I (purchase or financial decision) _______________________________________
and I was _________________________ about it
because _____________________________________
Where to next?
Does the way you spend your time and money match up with what you said was most important?
This may be the first time you have ever thought about this, and the process may be painful.
The goal is to begin noticing moments when your time and money don’t align with your values.
Don’t expect sudden transformation, commit to constant improvement. There will always be changes you can make to better align your behaviours with your values. And your values and priorities will change over time too.