Values are a helpful guide for our lives, for building a brand and career, and for being a leader.
Knowing our values and having them present will help us make better decisions and practice what we stand for. When we are not connected to our values and don’t stay true to them, we feel a lack of integrity in ourselves. This leads us to feel off track and not aligned with who we really are. The same applies to our business or organization.
Our values are also a solid foundation on which our brand is built. While our business might change over time, our values are usually a lot more steady, and most of them will stay the same throughout our whole lives. However, it doesn’t mean that we can’t change and evolve towards other values if we think we have outgrown some of them. For example, if we belong to a certain religion or political party, we might suddenly feel that we don’t like this “us against others” mentality anymore. We might notice a shift in our values, which are now based on “connection and empathy”. Or there are some values that might lose importance over time while others gain importance. That’s why it’s helpful to reflect from time to time on our values in order to reconnect again with what really matters to us and our business.
Idowu Koyenikan says that “a highly developed value system is like a compass. It serves as a guide to point you in the right direction when you are lost.” When we know the values of our company and our own values, it’s a lot easier to make decisions. Understanding our values helps us say ‘yes’ to things we think will support our growth and ‘no’ to things we are not aligned with.
So next time we are doubting whether to take on a new project or client, write about a certain topic on social media, or follow advice from someone, we can ask ourselves: Is this decision in alignment with our values?
