Are Your Values Aligned With Your Goals?
Have you wondered why you aren’t able to stick to your goals? Or maybe on the flip side, have you felt like you’re not fulfilled with yourself even after knocking down all the goals you’ve set out for yourself?
If that sounds like you - don’t worry! This is an issue that so many of us face at one point or another in our lives. The natural question then surfaces:
How do I feel fulfilled with the goals I set?
The answer to that question can be found in the following quote from Tony Robbins:
If you want the formula for happiness, then all you have to do is find your highest values and then spend your life living up to them.
Bingo! If we don’t align our actions and goals with our personal values, it’s much more likely that we’ll continue to act and achieve a whole lot of accomplishments without even finding true fulfillment in the midst of it all.
How do most people currently set goals? When you think about it, it is often in a to-do list type of fashion. What most of us overlook is that a simple to-do list aimed at helping us achieve certain goals is actually masked as a have-to-do list.
You might be scratching your head thinking, “How can that be? I decided I want to do these things and then put them on a list.” Let’s take a deeper look into that, shall we?
Ask yourself when and what causes you to make a to-do list. A common response to that prompt looks like this: “When everything becomes so overwhelming, I organize it all with a to-do list so I can keep things straight and remember everything going on.” By this point, most of us are confronted with the humbling thought that we might have less time to accomplish the things on the list than we might have initially thought.
If you’ve been in this predicament of a situation before, you’ll likely notice that you make some strange decisions in accordance with your to-do list. You start to take shortcuts and skimp on certain areas of your life in order to make do with your list of action items and goals. Similarly, you continue to add to the to-do list with like-minded actions or goals that pop up in your day to day going forward.
Simply put, you have gone into reaction mode as a result. Unfortunately, we get so tied up in knocking off the items on our to-do lists in pursuit of our goals that the most important things in our life - the ones that ring true to the core of our human experience - often fall off the list. This can look like, “I’m going to skip my evening workout today and start next week,” or like, “It’s only one game I’ll miss; Charlie will have plenty more games in the season.”
As these cases begin piling up, we begin to neglect ourselves in relation to the values and virtues we hold near and dear to ourselves in order to just get the goal over the line. Getting the goal merely over the line doesn’t bring that joy and fulfillment you thought you would experience when you first set out the goal. And over time, we end up in a constant loop and cycle of being busy all the time, but the achievements that come from us being so busy take away from the things that are most valuable to us.
Just because you are doing a lot more doesn’t mean you are getting a lot done. Don’t confuse movement with progress! - Denzel Washington
So it’s clear that we need to reengineer the system of setting our goals then - how exactly do we do that now?
It’s simple - we need to reverse the process of creating a to-do list based on our schedules and then trying to fit our values into the mix. By focusing on our values first, we are able to create meaningful goals and, most importantly, a want-to-do list.
It’s key that we make the differentiation between the have-to-do list and want-to-do list. The former doesn’t inherently build one’s values into it whereas the latter builds goals and action items that are fundamentally aligned with your values and personal desires.
Determining Your Values Exercise
If you’re scratching your head trying to come up with a list of values or feel that they’re too murky, I’ve got a two-part exercise that might be able to help you out.
Firstly, I’ve personally found it easiest to develop my own values by compartmentalizing my life through a five pillared approach that looks at:
Relationships
Health
Career
Finances
Impact/Growth
By assessing what I desire out of each of these domains in my life and constantly assessing where I am in relation to each pillar and my desired state, I’ve been able to get clearer on my personal values. Funny enough, sometimes you’ll find what you thought you wanted initially couldn’t be any further away from the truth. The beauty of this exercise is that it allows you to confront your weak spots tactically, but it’s never a one and done type of exercise given it’s merely just a snapshot in time. You can learn more about this exercise and its genesis here.
Secondly, imagine you are at a large gathering to honor your life. The room is full of people who have come to celebrate you and the following three people from the crowd walk up to a staging area to speak about you:
A family member talks about you from a more intimate perspective
A close friend talks about the nature of your friendship and how you’ve affected their life
A previous coworker speaks about how you two worked under pressure and in more lax moments
Imagine what you’d ideally hope those three speeches would look like. Take a deep dive into what you’ve written down about the way you hope you become. What’s in front of your eyes are the highest values you treasure and cherish the most as an individual.
Now that you have a clear view on your values, you can accordingly start devising goals that directly align with your values. Sit on your values for a couple of weeks to see if some change or some hold higher importance than others. In the end, you’ll be able to set goals according to your values and adjust priorities as needed based on values you hold in higher regards than others.
At the end of the day, you’ll be able to combine your values with action items and a to-do list in a way that ensures your goals are aligned with your true values and priorities. And that my friends leads to a more happy and fulfilled life!
“It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.“ - Roy Disney
