Values list and questions here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vaztmu1e13lvgfl/CoreValues.pdf?dl=0

[TRANSCRIPT OF MAIN EPISODE]

Hi, friends. Cianna Stewart here from the No Complaining Project. It’s Wednesday, January 13. And while this is not a politics podcast, I need to acknowledge that  it’s been quite a week here in the United States. A lot of us are feeling a lot of things. And that’s ok. In fact we were talking last night with some friends about how it’s totally normal right now to not feel ok because so much around us right now is not ok.

So. Give yourself a break. Take a breath.

I’ve been thinking a lot about values. And about identity.

This ties in with what’s been happening around the country, and it also ties in with New Year’s Resolutions - can you believe that was less than 2 weeks ago?!?

How we approach goals and even which goals to choose depends on our values - or at least it should. Too often we set goals as if they happen in a vacuum, without taking a moment to think about what achieving them would say about who we are or want to be.

For example, let’s say you set a goal of climbing Mt. Everest. Or making 10x your current income. Or something else that would take a huge amount of work and focus and time. 

There’s no problem with setting this kind of goal - unless, say, you realize that your strongest identity is as a parent and your highest value is on quality time with your kids. Suddenly your goal is in conflict with your values and you probably need to rethink it.

Then again, somebody else could be a parent and this goal could be perfect. Say your highest value is on achievement and on being a role model for your kids about setting big goals and doing hard work. If that’s the case, then reaching the summit is a goal that’s totally in line with your values. No conflict there.

Your identity is formed around your values, whether or not you’ve ever taken the time to consciously identify them. It can be useful to think about your values to inform your goals, or at least you need to evaluate that your goals - and the person who you need to be in order to reach them - they’re not in conflict with your values.

Understanding your values will also help reinforce your “why” for whatever it is that you’re doing. (Actually, it will also help you understand why you are not doing something that otherwise seems good to do, like, why you’re actively resisting something.)

What kind of goals are we talking about? For example, my highest value is curiosity. My other important values are kindness, doing good in the world, being creative, being independent, being a maker and a doer.

So when I set my goals, I need to check that they don’t conflict with my values or I know (from experience) that they’ll fail. I’ll probably rebel or act out somehow and not complete my goal and then be at risk for getting down on myself for not achieving it even though I said that I want to. In those cases, I probably took on goals to please someone else without checking in to be sure that it’s something I really want (and that it’s in line with my values).

How I check is I ask myself: “If I am successful in this, what will change in my world? Who will I be?”

I also want to be sure to ask: “What will it take to achieve this goal? What impact will that process have on my life? Who do I need to be to do that process?”

If either of those “who will I be” questions is in conflict with my values, I’m in trouble. I need to step back and rethink my goals.

Taking the time to uncover your values is powerful. It can help get your entire life in alignment - and can reveal why something that is objectively good still doesn’t feel right to you. It can help clarify big life choices and help you make decisions about them.

For me, whenever I felt like my life was off-kilter or out of tune, I could think back and realize that at some point I started acting in ways that were in conflict with my values. Usually it wasn’t by a lot - or at least not at first. 

It’s like when I used to work in nonprofits and we would talk about agencies that were suffering from “mission creep.” You know what a mission is, right? Those mission statements that outline the goals and purposes of any nonprofit. These were places that started out with a really clear mission but then added a program that wasn’t 100% in line with what they did, because an opportunity came up or some funding or something. It was a close program, but it wasn’t exactly 100%. And then then they added another one that was close to that, and another and another - until they realized that they’d ended up devoting a lot of energy and resources to things that weren’t their core skill set or focused on their core clients, or otherwise were just pulling them away from their mission. 

I think about that a lot. I think it’s easy for many of us to just say yes to opportunities when they arise, or to be influenced by people around us, by what we’ve been told, to do things that are just a little out of character, or to do things just because we were invited to do them. And then we do that a little more, and a little more, and a little more, and eventually we find ourselves way over far away from where we started, doing things we never expected to do. When that happens, it’s on us to check in and see if that’s really who we are. It might be. These opportunities might actually reveal something that we care about that we never would have discovered if we followed our original path. Then again, we might find that we have turned into people we don’t recognize and never wanted to be, mostly a reflection of other people and other people’s desires, and not a reflection of who we are.

Knowing your core values can help keep you on course. They can also give you a through line if - like me - you’re someone who has an unconventional life path. My resume is peppered with all kinds of different jobs in different fields. But seen through the lens of my endless curiosity, my desire to make things and to help spread kindness and creativity, they make a lot more sense.

Once I figured out my core values, and to help me keep them in mind, I ended up playing around and turning them into personal taglines that I put on non-business business cards. Other uses for them (if you do them for yourself), you could use them on personal websites or dating profiles or just keep them as fun conversation starters when someone says, “tell me about yourself.”

For example, one of my go-to taglines is that I’m a promoter of curiosity and kindness. 

The other is that I’m super curious about nearly everything.

I’ve found that revisiting my values from time to time helps reinforce what I want to do in the world, who I want to surround myself with, and what I want to be remembered for after I’m gone. Often times, it means that I don’t actually change what I’m doing but I just understand better why I’m doing it, or it gives me a new way to think about it.

This New Year, reviewing my values helped me decide that I want to do more with the No Complaining Project because I’ve seen how it’s helped people and I’d like to help more.

And this week, holding my values in my mind is helping guide how I want to respond to what is going on in the world, specifically what’s going on in the US, how to talk about it, how to think about it. For me, I want to be sure that I stay curious and not shut down. I want to be kind, not cruel or divisive. And at the same time I want to do good in the world and I want to ta...