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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.
Activity
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.
Purchase (or financial decision)
This week I (puchase 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.
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