What are Your Personal Values?

One of the areas we spent some time on in our retreat was personal values. We talked about how what we value has profound impacts on our job choices and preferences. They are also usually the root of the problem when we find ourselves unhappy in our lives. That's when something--work, personal relationships, etc.--is violating our personal values or we are not doing all we could to live out our values in our lives.

One thing that's interesting is how men and women seem to have very different values at work, as this article by Sylvia Ann Hewlett underscores. Her research indicates that men are simple creatures--they value power and money. Women, on the other hand, bring a great deal more complexity to work. For us,  high quality colleagues, “bringing myself” to work, flexibility, collaboration and teamwork, recognition, and giving back to society all trump power and money.

When this gets interesting is if we have a workplace that's run by men, who often assume that women want what they want and structure the work environment accordingly. So many of the things that are more important to us may not even be on the radar screen for our bosses, making it more than likely that we're going to be experiencing some serious job dissatisfaction. Of course, this can go the other way too--women running the show and not meeting the needs of men, which creates its own issues.

When it comes to career satisfaction, one of the most important things you can do for yourself is get clear about your values. Understand what's important to you AND understand how these values play out in your work life. If flexibility is a key issue, for example, what is happening at work to support you in living this? Or if recognition is your thing, are you getting it? How can you get more if you aren't?

At our retreat, a key value for several of the women was "creativity." Sadly, for many of them work just didn't feed that value. I can relate. I'm currently trying to re-structure my freelance work away from the analytical stuff that pays the bills but doesn't feed my soul toward the more creative opportunities that allow me to express my talents more fully. It's one of the reasons I love blogging--it gives me a place to put some creativity into my life.

Exploring Your Personal Values
If you haven't looked at your values, I highly recommend spending some time figuring them out. Here's a cool little tool that lets you prioritize 20 different values, so you can see them in order of their importance to you. If something you value isn't on the list, you can add your own, too. Once you've completed the exercise, spend some time journaling about your values. What do they mean to you? How are you currently expressing them? What would you like to add to your life to further live out these values?

I promise you that reflecting on your values and taking steps to live a life that's more in accordance with those values will pay big dividends.

Comments

[Lisa Gates]

Michele, this is music to my ears. I belong to a superb collective of women coaches here in Santa Barbara and we've just created a workshop for women in transition who are in their 50s or about to be. It's titled "This Ain't Your Mama's 50" and will focus on turning 50 "on purpose."

We all informally surveyed our female clients and discovered that every single one said they were unable to be full alive, fully self-expressed in their work because their work is dominated by male values.

We all bear personal responsibility for creating the shift in ourselves that will lead to generating the values we wish to live from and experience in the workplace. We need to BE what we value, ask for what we want, and be prepared to move on if the compromise is to out of balance. We do have choice.

Okay, I'll put the podium away... Just want to mention 2 other core value resources:

A free, no strings core value exercise. Do the work and a report is emailed to you. http://www.ucunlimited.com/index.html

Also, I have a free workbook people can download from my site with core values exercises among other things.

[Michele Martin]

Thanks for the resources and the great comment, Lisa. One thing I've noticed re: the domination of male core values is that it carries over into our lives even when we work for ourselves. I know many women who have trouble defining themselves as being "successful" if they don't meet the male view of success. I do a lot of subcontracting for a women business owner who has been able to support herself and her family doing work she loves and working with people she cares about for the past 15 years. But she'll go to conferences where the "big boys" play and feel like she's a failure because she hasn't built this massive company doing millions of dollars of business. She knows it's a little crazy, but she's internalized these values and has a hard time turning them off.