One of the first questions we should be asking ourselves when we are making big life decisions. It seems like it is an easy “normal” thing to consider but also something that gets set aside for more pressing matters. 

What are your top values? 

Some people might start by saying “oh, you know…” and decide that it’s something so common that we must all value the same things. Really, that's not an answer.

The first time I was given this exercise of identifying my top values, it seemed easy and insignificant, but here I am 13 years later still talking about how it changed the direction of my life.  Everything changed when I started aligning my life to the things I value instead of what "I think I should do". 

I was given this sheet of paper with hundreds of words listed on it and when I scanned the words I thought yes, yes, yes… I like all of these and value all of these. In that way there are many things that we do in fact value and are common, however the key would be to find the top 3 or 4 or 5 values that really drive the ship.

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Get your pen ready. I’d say print out the list if you can as it will make it easier.

The goal is to highlight, mark or write down each word that sparks some kind of physical or emotional sensation.

This is a “feel-think” exercise. It is not based on what you “think” it is, but using the body to “feel” what the answers might be. So, before you look at any of the words you’re going to want to get ready, get centered, ready to pay attention to the impulses in your body.

As you scan the words one by one, not giving yourself time to stop and think, but really waiting until your body has a response. 

Wait until your body twitches, or nudges forward, or has an emotional response, anxiety, fear, excitement, uncomfortable. Imagine that all of these are your body signaling, good or bad, before you can judge it, mark the word. By the time you get to the end of the list, you either have 50 words marked, or only a few.  Even if it feels triggering in a "negative" way, continue to mark it down because there is still something there to be noted. 

Most people will have lots of words that sparked something and that is ok. 

Now, take all the words that you marked as your second list. You will scan those words and start to determine which words have more of a “hit” than the next. You are trying to find the words that are the most triggering or exciting, or your body is leaning into the most. As you break down the next set of words, finding the words that stick out more than the next you’ll break your list down even further.

Then you do the same thing. As your list gets smaller and smaller you may need to take a step back and come back if you need to reset your attention to your body and emotions. You may want to look at one word and feel it against the others and see which words win. 

The goal is to end up with about 3-5 words at the end. We might consider these our top values (for today).

The reason why we do not discount words that trigger us in a negative way is because the size of the trigger is a direct correlation to the importance of that subject. 

Whatever you end up coming up with as your top values, you now are starting to create the foundation of which decisions can be measured. This might actually replace the good ole pro and con list. Does this decision take into account my values. If I were to measure this decision based on my values alone, what would my conclusion be?