What Are Your Values?

Identifying your values will be pivotal to finding your way to happiness and your path to wealth building that is meaningful to you. If you find out what drives you, how much you want it and how money can get you to where you want to go, you will be unstoppable.

I used to give “A Man is Not A Plan” financial workshops to standing room only crowds. The women were given a list like the one below. When I asked what was important to them about money, the room would be so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Pretty soon the stories flowed. Some had values that were similar like peace of mind, security and freedom, but it was surprising how many were different. And freedom for one looked very different to another.

Your unique core values guide your decisions and actions. Connecting your values to what you love is important in creating your life and making daily decisions to align your finances with your envisioned life.

Discovering your values can be transformational and help you through the rocky parts to stay the course. For example, you run across an adorable dress on sale. But your top value is travel and you are saving to go to Spain. Knowing travel is a value higher than having yet another cute dress in your closet, you have a better chance of staying on track with saving.

If you are part of a couple, doing the values work together will help with communication about your goals and strategies. If you are living from paycheck to paycheck, then your values may not be aligned. Having the biggest stash of cash is NOT the goal. It’s living a life that is satisfying to you.

Below is a list of values that will help get you started. If you want to go online, you will find many more. Relax. Take a deep breath. Try to narrow your values down to a top five.

It doesn’t hurt to do this periodically, depending on your life experiences, your values can change.