The Value in your Core Values

I am often asked what is the difference between ‘values’ and ‘beliefs’ within the career coaching realm. Put simply it is this: your values, and you may only have two or three of them, are the threads that run core to your life and your personhood. Your values may morph a little over time, but rarely do they change completely in a life-time.
Beliefs, by contrast, are more of an outer layer of our being. These are the ideas and comprehensions we have collected from the day we entered this world. They influence how we perceive the world and our role within it. These notions and ideas are usually gathered from the outside world. Then come from our family of origin, school, society, our peers, our culture, our work environments, our political and religious communities…. et al. 
What is nice about these beliefs is that because they are generated externally, once we have a awareness of what they are, we get to choose whether we keep them or not. These beliefs will all have risen for good reason. They will all have served us well at some point in our lives. Some of them however will have become redundant as we grown older, wiser, and changed the contexts we live or work within. These beliefs that no longer work for us can actually hold us back. These are the limiting beliefs that can sabotage our success in the present, and prevent us progressing forwards.
The good news is that when we have identified this kind of closed loop in our brain, we can, with a little practice and rigour, substitute each with a thought that serves us well. Our brains have the capacity for us to reroute our neural pathways….. 
So reading what I have just written it would seem that perhaps our beliefs might be more amenable to live with than our core values, which are more stable.
The true benefit of our core values is that because they are static and central to our being, they can begin to serve as fixed points on our moral? Ethical? compass. These values, once identified, can really help us to make clear decisions.
If we are about to buy a house, accept a new role, go for promotion, move to a new organisation or even country, it is worth measuring the decision against these values. if they line up then you know it has a good possibility of success. Literally, by asking yourself if this decision you are taking honours your core values, you can illuminate your own pathway forward. 
My core values have emerged as ‘justice’, ‘equality’ and ‘joy’. I am conscious that it might appear that ‘joy’ is an odd one within the context of career coaching …. how might this role honour that value? Well it’s as simple as this. I believe that if we are to spend at least 8 hours a day, that’s a third of our lives, in work, then we may as well choose to do something that gives us joy. And you know what I see over and over? Firstly that it really is possible to have joy in our work. Secondly that providing joy for others through our work is immensely fulfilling. Thirdly I see that the more joy we gain from work the better we perform and the better we feel. The better we feel and the better we perform, the beret we are paid. Thus begins the upward Spiral…….
So whilst working in HR did not give me joy, and I got out, working with coachees in order to help them find their own version of joy in their careers is almost unequivocally joyous for me. This is a symbiotic process where both client and coach are nourished in our work together. What could be better then enabling another human to identify their core values in order that they can make clear, informed, autonomous decisions about their own processional lives? This is Value-filled and joyous work. 
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