By Rebekah Hanson
The start of a new year can be a time of great reflection and introspection. It can be a time to look back at the past year and revisit goals that were set for the year prior. As you look over your own personal goals you set last January, you may ask yourself, “Did I meet those goals this year?” My guess is, if your year has looked anything like mine, you did not quite level up to your own expectations and accomplish all that you hoped you would this year. 2020, as we all know far too well, has been a year of unexpected change and adjustment. It has been a year of loss and heartache, as well as one of fear and division. But it also has been a year of growth. It has been a time to reevaluate what truly matters and to alter our focus towards those lasting and meaningful aspects of life. As you look forward towards this upcoming year, rather than setting rigid goals and expectations for yourself that could ultimately leave you feeling empty and unaccomplished, what if you instead focused your energy on discovering your core values?
You may ask, what are core values? Values are those things in life that define who we are. They are the attributes and feelings that we seek to be guided by in our lives and the way we hope to be remembered. Discovering your values is discovering what matters most to you. By seeking a life driven by values versus one focused on goals, you will discover a more rich and meaningful life. While yes, there is a nice feeling of success and accomplishment experienced when you check off the box of a goal you have reached, there is also an opposing feeling of disappointment and frustration when goals are unable to be met.
While I am not saying it is a bad thing to have high hopes and expectations for yourself, I am suggesting that maybe we readjust those expectations to be within the realm of our own control. As 2020 has just shown us, life often throws us curve balls and suddenly once attainable goals appear far out of our reach. And even if we do reach those goals, doesn’t it get exhausting to simply move through life checking off boxes—just moving from one goal to the next? I personally find this goal-driven mindset to be quite overwhelming. Instead of measuring our success by the number of things we finish and the destinations we reach, why don’t we learn to enjoy the process and journey of becoming who we want to be as we move closer towards those life-long goals of discovering what matters most to us? This is what describes a values-driven life.
Ever since I can remember, my family has loved to go skiing together. As a young girl, I remember waking up early to brace the chilly morning winds and then begrudgingly being dragged up to the very tippy top of the ski mountains only to quickly turn right around and race my siblings and cousins down to the bottom of the slopes on my little skis. I remember becoming so frustrated because I could never keep up, and I remember just wanting to take off those silly skies and go home to our cozy cabin in the valley. What was the point of going up and down those slopes and never being fast enough? I could not see the joy in skiing.
Now, as I look back on those memories, I chuckle to think how naïve I was to not recognize how lucky I was to be up in the wondrous mountains skiing with my family. I’m now able to look back with a new perspective and understand what I was missing in those seemingly pointless ski runs. Where I was going wrong was that I was only focused on the goal I had set for myself. Rather than enjoying the beautiful scenery surrounding me and the wind rushing against my bundled up, healthy, and strong body, I was distracted by the thought of not getting down the mountain fast enough. I was skiing purely for the purpose of checking off a box and reaching an arbitrary goal. I was missing the point. How much joy and beauty I missed out on simply because I was not allowing myself to enjoy the process of growth and learning involved in each and every journey down the mountain.
Do you see the connection? How much are you missing out on in life because you are too distracted by the end goal? Think about it.
Now, you know yourself better than anyone. So, who are you? Take a second and write down a few words that you feel best define you. Are those attributes you are proud of, and do they reflect what is most important to you? If not, then flip that piece of paper over and make a new list—this time including 3 to 5 words that you would like to be defined as. These are your core values. No one’s will be exactly the same, and that’s okay. I actually would hope that they would be that way. That is the beauty of values. They are personal and unique to each and every one of us and can be altered as we change and grow.
So now, as you look towards 2021, consider ways you can start to live a life more driven by those things that are most important to you. Maybe list a few simple habits you can begin to implement into your day-to-day life to start living by those values. If you strive to do that, I can almost guarantee that no matter what happens this next year, you will look back and feel satisfied with the person you have become and are continuing to become. I promise that you will feel grateful for the moments you cherished as you shifted your focus from simply checking boxes to living a more rich and meaningful life, enjoying every moment on that mountain, including each fall and disappointment, through your beautiful journey through life.
Check out the Purpose module to learn more about how you can find meaning in life, and be watching for new material to hit mybestself101.org about ways you can start living a more rich and satisfying life guided by values!
