Now that you’ve reflected on life using the Wheel of Life and made a list of SMART PATH goals, it’s time to set priorities. As impressive as it would be to tackle every problem in your life simultaneously, it’s unrealistic. Not only would it be a whole lot of work, your focus would be everywhere at once!
What do you value most?
Are any of these values at the top of your list?
- Time with family
- Forging ahead with your career
- Serving your community
- Love
- Adventure
- Creating a cozy home
- Being healthy
- Creating a life that works
Everyone’s values are unique, and I can’t tell you what you should value most—it’s up to you! But asking yourself the question and finding out what you value most in life is important. It gives you a clearer focus, and knowing what you value means you can structure your life to match it.
How do your values show up in your Wheel of Life? Are you allocating your time and energy in a way that matches your values? What are YOUR priorities?
Congruence
To be congruent means to be in agreement or harmony. Life works better when you’re not fighting yourself, so it’s important that your values and the way you live agree with each other.
If you value having a neat home, but consistently come home from shopping trips with bags of unnecessary purchases, your values and actions aren’t in harmony, and you have a decision to make. Do you want to change your values, or the way you shop?
Ask yourself both ways: Is shopping more important than a neat home? Is a neat home more important than shopping? Changing the words around makes your brain consider both sides, and can help you break out of bad habits.
If you decide you enjoy having a neat home more than shopping, you have a clear path toward congruence. Simple, but sometimes difficult. (If you have a hard time keeping your home neat, give us a call!)
Reflecting your values and setting priorities based on those values allows you to make decisions on what serves your purposes and what doesn’t. This helps with anything from decluttering your things to deciding what obligations to commit to.
Great post!
Thank you Phaedra! You’re right, acting based on values really does help the decision-making process.
I love the idea of congruence concerning actions and values. So often, what we say we want and what we’re actually doing is not aligned. As you suggested, it’s useful to stay curious and ask questions so that you can tease out what direction you want to go in. It might mean changing behaviors or being honest about what we really value. This is an excellent time of year to do some internal digging.
I like how you worded it, being useful to stay curious! Being able to look at one’s life from the outside is important.
I’m always happy to see the word “congruent” in a context that doesn’t require angles or math class. 😉
It’s easy to get out of alignment with one’s values, and it’s not always our own doing. I highly value my interpersonal relationships, but it’s hard to meaningfully maintain and build relationships during COVID, because phone calls and Zooms just aren’t the same.
Still, wherever we can investigate how we are (or are not) living our values so that we can create greater congruence, it’s a win.
Absolutely, Julie!