Tired of Living on Autopilot? How to Discover and Align to Your Core Values
We all yearn for a life that brings us fulfilment and purpose. If you're here, reading this blog post, I can imagine that, like many others, you too are on a quest to find more meaning in your life. You crave that feeling of excitement and passion, the motivation to wake up every morning, ready to conquer the day.
But what exactly creates fulfilment in life?
Fulfilment, at its core, is the outcome of living a life that aligns with our personal values - the things that truly matter to us. We experience our best selves when our actions and decisions reflect these values, while compromising them leaves us feeling disconnected and unfulfilled.
For instance, if you value creativity but fail to find a creative outlet in your life, you'll feel like an essential part of yourself is locked away, starved of life and expression.
It might sound simple enough - just stay true to your values to experience fulfilment. However, there's a challenge we face early on in life: no one teaches us how to identify our values. How can you stay true to something when you're not even sure what that something is?
No wonder many of us grow up feeling lost, settling into uninspiring careers, stuck in unexciting lifestyles, and maintaining unsatisfying relationships.
In the previous blog post on Embodying your Human Design Energy Type, we explored how not knowing what truly matters to you leads to prioritising other people's happiness over your own, resulting in a life on autopilot - going through the motions without excitement and passion.
But you didn't come here for that. You deserve more than a life of apathy. You're here because you know deep down that life holds more for you. This blog post will help you embark on the next step of your self-mastery journey, reclaiming control over your happiness and fulfilment by helping you understand and align with your core values.
Understanding Core Values
Values are the fundamental beliefs that guide us in life. They represent the personal qualities and characteristics we aspire to embody and wish to see in others. Consciously or subconsciously, values shape how we show up in the world and how we interact with others.
While you might not be fully aware of your values right now, they have been influencing your behaviour throughout your life. For instance, if you value connection, you likely crave social interactions and meaningful conversations. Experiencing phases of isolation without friends, a partner, or social events leaves you feeling unfulfilled.
The Importance of Knowing Your Values
Understanding your values empowers you to proactively seek ways to honour them. They become guiding principles that help you make decisions and take actions aligned with your priorities. Living in accordance with your values leads to inner peace, ease, and happiness. On the other hand, going against your values brings feelings of inauthenticity, guilt, and resistance. Knowing your values can also help you find opportunities that match your principles, enabling you to consciously put yourself in environments that nurture your best qualities.
For example: My husband works in sales and he loves connecting with others in a genuine, meaningful way and building strong connections and works for a company that values these qualities. This leads to positive sales interactions and a fulfilling work life. However, if he was forced to work for a company that prioritises sales targets above moral conduct and focus on quantity over quality, he would feel dissatisfied, uninspired, and unfulfilled every time they stepped into the office.
In relationships and partnerships, shared values are crucial. When values don't align, conflicts may arise, making it challenging to find common ground and understanding. The same applies to working with clients, colleagues, and service providers; aligning values ensures smoother interactions.
In short, knowing your values offers significant advantages in all areas of life, so let's dive into how to discover yours.
How to Find Out Your Values
Discovering your values can be a rewarding journey. Here are three methods to help you identify your core values:
1.Observe Your Behaviour: Reflect on moments when you felt proud, happy, excited, and energised in your life. Write down these memories in separate columns, and then look for common themes or threads between them. Ask yourself what specifically made you feel proud, happy, excited, and energised. For instance, if you often feel energised after engaging in artistic activities like drawing, writing poems, or creating visuals, you might recognise a theme of creativity or self-expression.
2. Look to Your Human Design: Your Human Design Chart holds valuable insights into your authentic self. Consider your energy type, profile, and other aspects of your chart to gain clues about your core values. For example, Manifestors don’t like being told what to do so they might value independence, while Man-Gens may value variety and adventure. Your profile lines can also shed light on values you resonate with. For example Line 1’s love to research, unpack and understand how things work so they may value knowledge, learning or expertise while Line 4’s love relationships and close networks so they might value connection, community and partnerships in their life.
3. Notice What You Stand Against: Sometimes, it's easier to identify what you stand against, as it triggers strong emotional reactions. Think about things you've experienced that you wouldn't wish on others. For instance, if bending the rules or unfairness elicits strong reactions, fairness might be one of your values. If you despise dishonesty and lack of transparency, honesty could be a core value. Disliking monotony and a strong desire for variety may indicate freedom or adventure as values.
It’s important to remember that not all values are created equal so rank your values in order of priority to determine which ones hold more significance to you.
Additionally, recognizing your values requires honesty and non-judgment with yourself. Sometimes, we consciously choose values we admire, such as kindness or compassion. However, true alignment means acknowledging which values truly drive your decisions and actions. For instance, you may find that success, despite not being something you openly share, is a driving force in your life. You have to choose to embrace your true values without judgement.
How to Start Aligning with Your Values
Having a list of values won’t change anything unless you start embodying them in your daily life. So, once you have your list of values, you have to start integrating them into your daily life. Here are two ways to do exactly that:
1. Observe Changes: As you become more aware of your values, start noticing them pop up in your daily life. You might notice shifts in their order of priority. Update your list accordingly, embracing any newfound insights.
2. Apply Your Values as Filters: When faced with decisions or opportunities, ask yourself if they align with your values and make choices that resonate with your core values. For example: If you are offered a new job, ask yourself does this job align with my values before you make a firm decision.
Moreover, living a fulfilled life begins with understanding and aligning with your core values. They are the guiding stars that lead you toward a life of authenticity and happiness and it’s your duty to embrace this journey of self-discovery and make conscious decisions that honour those values.
If you want to explore this process in more depth, consider joining The Self-Mastery Minimind for a comprehensive journey of self-discovery and embracing your unique path to success.
What’s the next step?
1. Want to delve further into Human Design and learn about individual energy types and other aspects of HD charts? Subscribe to my Youtube Channel.
2. Ready to rediscover yourself and pave your unique path to success?
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3. Looking for personalised guidance and a deep dive into your Human Design?
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