What are the best strategies for making decisions that align with your values in personal development?

Daily, we’re faced with an endless amount of choices. Whether we’re deciding between a higher salary or work life balance? Solo-traveling the world or building a home? Career or family? Speaking up or staying silent? Each of these decisions are guided by our values, “the principles that give our lives meaning and allow us to persevere through adversity.” Identifying your personal values helps guide decisions to live a life that’s fulfilling for you. There are many “good” values and we usually want them all to be part of our lives. But if everything is important, nothing is. By selecting your most important personal values, you can weed out those that will lure you into a good life and live by those that will give you a great life.

Best way to make decisions that align with your values is to get clarity about your core values. First thing you need to do is identify your core values clearly. It's difficult task, needs a lot of self-reflection. You can do this by asking yourself continuously - What principles and beliefs are important for you? What makes you feel fulfilled and satisfied? What you stand for? What qualities you most admire in others? What are the values you want to be remembered for? etc. Ultimate purpose of self reflection is that you should know what truly matters to you - your core values. Once you know these, you can evaluate every decisions or actions considering your core values. That's how you can make value aligned decisions to improve yourself.

It's critically important to invest time to get clarity ahead of time on what your personal values, sense of self, and inner sense of purpose/ meaning are. For me, those are feelings, and I have words that are 'handles' for these feelings, and to help me connect with that inner sense of self. Second, daily mindfulness to be still and reconnect with this. Finally, in the moment, this allows me to take a moment to still my mind and be present to reconnect with this, and I get a very clear 'yes' or no' about alignment. No anal-yzing, no evaluation - just a clear sense of yes or no. But it takes investing all the rest of that discipline to make that simple. Make sense?

This isn't complicated but can be challenging because it requires being honest with yourself. Spend time building your self-awareness. Make decisions with intention and clarity. Evaluate those decisions with honesty and humility. And you will be well on your way.

To make decisions that align with your values in personal development, start by identifying and prioritizing your core values, then set clear goals that reflect these values. Reflect on your options, seek input from trusted sources, and trust your intuition. Use a values-based decision-making framework like the 4P framework to evaluate choices, and practice mindfulness for self-awareness. Learn from your mistakes, periodically review your values, and be patient with the decision-making process, as it's an ongoing part of personal development, ensuring that your choices resonate with your evolving values and lead to a more purposeful and fulfilling life.

Evaluating your current decisions is an important step because our true power lies in the small actions we take every day, not the big moves we make once in a while. I've found that people often shy away from looking at how they spend their time because they think it says something negative about who and how they are; that it makes them bad or lazy or something. But what it really does is highlights their priorities and more importantly, their triggers. It shows very clearly what they are avoiding, but it also gives them a wonderful opportunity to make different decisions so they can take different actions and ultimately get different outcomes. This self-reflection is a game changer for aligning decisions and values.

To evaluate your current decisions and get inspired to take actions that resonate with your values, you may use something like this. For example, if one of your core values is to be a loving parent, you can ask yourself every morning - what would a loving parent do today? Or, what would a loving parent do in this situation?

Making decisions that align with your values is vital for a meaningful and fulfilling life. One of the best strategies for doing so is self-reflection. Take some time to identify your core values, those principles that guide your thoughts and actions. By understanding what truly matters to you, you can make choices that are align with those values. Additionally, setting clear goals can help keep you focused and motivated in pursuing personal growth while honoring your values. Also, make sure you regularly evaluate whether your decisions are moving you towards or away from your goals. Finally, seek support from like-minded individuals who share similar values to cultivate an environment that encourages your personal development journey.

In my experience when faced with decisions, there can often be many positive reasons for a variety of alternatives. When you know what your core values are and are trying to make decisions congruent with them, Option A and Option B may be both aligned and it then becomes a matter of preference and other factors such as stage in life, work life balance etc. that will come into your decision-making process.

Setting clear goals aligned with personal values creates a roadmap, fostering consistency in decision-making. Embracing adaptability is equally important; being open to reassessing values as personal growth occurs ensures decisions remain congruent with an individual's authentic self. Ultimately, the key lies in cultivating mindfulness and intentionality, guiding decisions towards a purposeful alignment with one's values in the journey of personal development.

“Know Thyself” - core values change as we evolve and grow. What’s important to you today won’t be what’s driving you in the future. So review your core values on a yearly basis to assess where you’re at and redirect your energy to focus on where you’re headed, not where you’ve been.

Proceed with love, grace, and compassion for yourself. And, do not underestimate the importance of any small step in the direction of what's important to you. It is not "all" or "nothing." Small choices and actions may not show that they make much of a difference at that time; however, they add up over the long term, and you will see the difference. Cheering you to live your best life every day!

Embrace the Learning Process: Remember that making value-aligned decisions is a continual process of self-discovery and growth. Don't be too hard on yourself if you make a decision that doesn't perfectly align with your values. Use such situations as opportunities for learning and growth. Set Boundaries: Establishing clear personal boundaries can help you protect and honor your values. It's essential to communicate and enforce these boundaries in your personal and professional life.

To uphold strong values may sometimes be hard, you may have to swim against the tide. But if you choose to do it, it will give far more satisfaction than standing with the crowd.