Why discovering your values is essential before setting goals.

To add meaning, purpose and happiness to your life, get clear on your values and make sure your actions are aligned with them.

Values are defined as how you want to behave, how you want to interact with and talk to others, how you want to treat others and yourself. Values are your hearts deepest desires and what matters most to you. They describe what you want to do and how you want to do it. They are not goals and they do not describe how you want to feel, there is a big difference.

In essence – your values are your true original self, your ego aside.

Your values tend to stay the same from when you are young into adulthood. However, as we get older, we tend to lose sight of them and we start acting and behaving according to our beliefs that we bring with us from our upbringing and according to other people’s expectations and wishes or even out of fear of being judged or ridiculed.

Goals are definite, short or long term accomplishments we want to reach and then “tick” off our list. When we set a goal that is not supported by our values, we are far more likely to experience stress, frustration, resentment and feeling unfulfilled in our lives.

To emphasise the difference, a value is the direction you wish to head into for the rest of your life, a goal is that one mountain top you are determined to climb. Studies have shown that those who are clear on their values, who know how they want to behave and interact, are far more likely to have a sense of purpose, meaning and passion in life.

To get clear on your values try the following exercise. (Keep in mind there are no right or wrong answers but be honest with yourself)

For each one of these four areas in your life (1) relationships, (2) health/personal growth, (3) family and (4) work/education, answer the following questions and write down the answer as that tends to create more clarity than just memorising the answers:

What sort of results do I want to see in this area? 

How do I want to behave in this area?

What sort of personal qualities do I want to cultivate in the area? (Who do I want to be?)

How would I treat others if I were at my personal best in this area? 

What skill or knowledge do I want to gather/bring to this area? 

What personal changes would I like to bring into this area?

Notice that the questions are always about you as you will never have any control over the way other people think, feel or behave. You can influence others, but the best way to do that is through your actions. Your actions will be most powerful and influential if they are strongly aligned with your values. When you are true to yourself and your actions aligned with your values, you bring a very powerful truth and meaning to any situation.

 Your goals will only bring you passion, purpose and meaning if they are based on your true values.

Answering the questions above will most likely bring out a familiar voice in your mind that wants to procrastinate, or that reminds you that you have tried this before without results, brings out a fear of failure or not having what it takes or tells you that you don’t know what you truly want. This is normal, simply thank your mind for thinking those thoughts and realise that they are only thoughts, not definite truths, thoughts that are designed to keep you "stuck" as your mind does not like change.

I encourage you to take some time to find your values, get clarity on what matters to you in your life, who you want to be and how you want to behave. In what area would you like to see rapid changes?

Then, with focused intent, practice one aspect of that new upgraded version of yourself every day for at least 2 weeks, I promise you, your goals will most likely change as a result and you will experience a new, powerful motivation, because you will become passionate about what you are working towards, you will increase your self esteem and decrease your level of anxiety and stress.

You see, it’s always more rewarding being who you were made to be in stead of being who someone else expects you to be or someone who simply fits in, but getting there takes practice, focus and a bit of courage.

4 ways to change your reality

The law of attraction is a concept that has been discussed and debated for a long time. Does it work? How does it work, why doesn’t it work for me, the way I anticipated?

In short, the law of attraction works constantly and precisely. We learned from studying chemistry as young children that like attracts like…that’s exactly how it works.

Every thought and experience we have creates a chemical reaction in our body. Did you know that it’s estimated that we think about 60.000 thoughts per day? Most of them we are repeating from the day before and the day before that.

Most of our thoughts are negative thoughts. This can be traced to the fact that thousands of years ago, we had to be careful, fearful and cautious as a species, danger was everywhere, it was literally eat or be eaten.

Today however, we have managed to avoid the every day danger with different circumstances, but we still tend to hold on to the fear in our minds! Watch out for them, don’t talk to strangers, protect your assets, your ego, I’m not enough etc…. you get the point.

Your reality is a symptom of your emotions, a projection of your thoughts. Not literally, but a projection of the energetic vibration of your emotions and your feelings….. like attracts like!

Thus, the way to change what you project would have to be to change what you think of…. So how does one do that?

1. What you focus on becomes real.

Learn how to focus by meditating, practicing mindfulness, reading using Albert Einstein’s concentration technique, sitting still, yoga, martial arts…the methods are endless. Find one that suits you and start practicing.

We drift in and out of focus around 6-10 times per minute. Even while reading these few paragraphs, your focus has probably drifted a few times. If you are not focused on what you want to see happen in your life most of the time….well guess what, chances are you won’t see it happen in the future unless you make a shift.

Personally I like Mindfulness meditation as I can do them anywhere, fully alert, awake and open to my experience at the time. If you prefer guided meditations, I recommend the stillness project by Tom Cronin.

2. Figure out what you are passionate about

What do you love doing? What makes you happy? Write it down as a list of 5-10 things and commit to doing at least one or two activities from your list daily for 2-3 weeks. When you focus on things that make you happy, chances are you will attract more circumstances into your life that have the potential to raise your permanent happiness bar.

I recommend reading The passion test by Janet Attwood, or simply going back to the time in your life when you seemed to be the happiest and write down what you were doing at the time.

3. Rewire your brain

By learning something new, you’re making new connections in your brain. By practicing what you learned for an extended period of time, you make those connections permanent. This is both good and bad news as you can just as easily create habits that are not improving your outcome or your personal growth. But after finding out what you are passionate about, what you wish to contribute towards, you can, with focused intent, create habits that help you reach your desired outcome.

How about focusing on the future you, the person you want to become? What will you be doing when you life is perfect? What will you look like? Who are you spending your time with? Where in the world are you? Get a clear sense of why you want to be that way and take some time every day to focus on that.

4. Learn to love yourself

For the above to really sink in and work for you, you need to get rid of your limiting beliefs about yourself. I’m serious about this. My whole style of coaching clients evolves around helping them lose the limiting beliefs they have about themselves, the “story” they have grown accustomed to telling, the identity they have identified with, the string of words that over the years have become beliefs. If they are not helping….your number one priority should be to exchange them for better, more loving and uplifting beliefs about yourself. Your subconscious rules! What sit’s in there is the ruler of your thoughts, emotions, feelings and yes…the symptoms you see in your life.

We are creatures of habit. If you want to change your outcome I recommend personal coaching above all else. It keeps you on track, accountable, focused and constantly moving forward. It doesn’t matter whether you are reaching for a specific goal or if you just want to finally get rid of your fear of spiders, personal coaching, as I do it, will find the right solution for you. We are all different as in what we are searching for, but deep down inside we are all the same. Learning to love yourself is the starting point to mastering the rest of your life.

For more information on how you can become the best version of yourself go to 

www.serenityEFT.com