Your values or priorities are the things that you believe are important in the way you live and work. Your values aren’t the same as mine, or as your friends, or even your family members. They are just yours. Life is easier if you can recognize and respect the values of others- the same or different. Values can be so important because they drive our decisions, behaviors and actions.

Personal Values

Your personal values are where you spend your time, energy and often, money. You may have both current personal values and aspirational personal values. Values change over time, whether that is consciously (like adding more focus on exercise), or subconsciously (like due to a life event, such as having children or including an older family member in your household). Current values are where you are now and how you’re showing up, which may not be your ideal. The aspirational personal values are that focus you would like to work to achieve. The more alignment between what we NEED to do and our personal values, the happier we feel with our lives.

Business Values

Our business values are how our organization shows up and operates in the world. Business core values can define the corporate culture and if integrated into your Human Resource processes and well communicated, can help you to hire people that best fit in your organization and to retain them. Consider adding some interview questions that reflect the business’ core values. They aren’t going to be the typical skills and experiences type of questions but can get to the deeper aspect of how well a potential employee will integrate and perform.

Affirm Your Values

Studies indicate that affirming your personal values can help buffer against some of the negative thought processes (or head trash) that arise when we things aren’t going well — like if you experience negative feedback or social rejection. Values affirmation also seems to engage protective psychological processes that can have positive impacts like increased pain tolerance, better self-control, and feelings of social connection. For more in depth information on the power of affirming your values, check out this article in Psychology Today.

For personal values, after you’ve identified them, the affirmation can be as simple as writing about them or talking about them with a friend or mentor. The last step would be enacting your values. When you’ve contemplated your values and in a difficult moment you start to think, ‘How is this an opportunity to practice honesty?’ or ‘How is this an opportunity to put my family first?’

For business, it’s important to make sure you are communicating the business core values to the employees, and integrating them into the business environment. Are your employees on board with the core values? Are the core values integrated into your HR processes? In smaller companies aligning on values can be a discussion to come to agreement as a group. In larger companies, they are often handed down but you still want to build consensus around the values and work to integrate them. As the leader you need to demonstrate the values, as well as make sure that people are adhering to the values agreed upon.

Communicate! People are more likely to support a decision if they understand why it was made. Talk about what is important to you – and this is true for both your employees and your family!

Here’s a link to a presentation I did for the Fairfield County SCORE on Values and Priorities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8XoWHjDV3U&t=7s