If you had known me when as a child, I do not think you would have ever uttered, “I think he’ll be a therapist.” Maybe no one utters that about a child but still . . .
I just had several other things I wanted to be at that point in my life. Traditional things like firefighter, actor, lawyer, doctor. But also, the maybe-not-so-traditional.
I wanted to be my favorite baseball player ever, Nolan Ryan. He threw a fastball hard and a right hook even harder.
I wanted to be Lion-o, the leader of the Thundercats. The amount of times I declared as loudly as I could, “Thunder! Thunder! Thundercats! HO!!” should be some sort of weird Guiness record.
Most of all I wanted to be Batman. All the time. Always Batman. My tree fort was my Batcave and I crafted a utility belt out of duct tape and any other material I could find. Every stick became a Batarang and every flower in my mother’s flowerbed, target practice.
If we got to grow up and become someone else like Nolan Ryan or Batman, maybe life would be a bit easier. Maybe we would feel more confident in our decisions and purpose. After all, we know exactly what Batman should be doing: fighting super villains. Super clear. If he’s not fighting super villains, he’s not Batman.
The problem is at some point along the way we must figure out who we are and what we are supposed to be doing with our lives.
If you do not know who you are, everything becomes more difficult. You are personally conflicted about where you should be spending your time and resources. Decisions feel more burdensome and outside of your control. And relationships get messy. You do not know who you want to be in your relationship or what kind of relationship you are looking for in the first place.
When I have talked about this problem with clients, most of them ask a similar question, “How do I even begin to find out who I am?” It’s a fair question. Finding yourself, after all, is a complicated process.
I believe you should start at the core. More specifically with your core values. Core Values are the essential values that matter the most to us. They are constant and help us determine how we act and what we do. They give direction and keep us from drifting. Decisions are filtered through our core values and they anchor us when circumstances become highly anxious and emotional. They serve as guideposts and help us to know when to say yes, and perhaps more importantly, when to say no.
Your core values ultimately help define you as, well, you. Businesses know this well and utilize core values to help define their company culture and apply them in decision making. Zappos is famous for their core values and when you read them you know instantly who they belong to. Their first Core Value listed is: “Deliver WOW through Service”. Apple’s first core value is even more obvious: “We believe that we’re on the face of the Earth to make great products.” If you have bought anything from Zappos or Apple, you instantly know this to be true about them. You can see how these core values would come in handy when either company needs to make decisions. “Is it getting in the way of delivering WOW through Service? Then get rid of it.” “Is it a great product? No? Well then, back to the drawing board.” Simple.
Just as the Core Values of business tell you exactly who they are, personal Core Values should do the same. My own Core Values consist of words like family, creativity, striving for excellence, and hope. I believe that most people who know me well would recognize some piece of me in those words. Over time, I have developed them further and clarified what specifically I mean when I use them. They have been extraordinarily useful in figuring out where I fit in life and helped me answer difficult decisions.
But they took time to discover. Most of us do not take the time to discover what our Core Values are. We need time to pause and examine what we want our Core Values to be. We need to articulate them clearly so that they can be integrated into our decision making.
And here’s the best part: You get to choose. There are no right or wrong answers here. They get to be whatever you make them. You Core Values are yours and no one else’s.They are part of what makes you distinct.
