2

Choose a job you love, and you will never
have to work a day in your life.

—CONFUCIUS

Now that you understand the importance of values, it’s time to identify your own values—a process that could well be one of the most important actions you ever take. A famous proverb from the Greek tradition is eloquent testimony to the importance of identifying your values: know thyself, be thyself, love thyself. How can you be yourself unless you know who you are? And how can you love yourself unless you are truly yourself, living your life according to your own highest values? Know yourself and your highest values; live authentically based on those values; and love yourself for being a unique creature unlike any other in the universe. In other words, identifying your highest values is your first step on the road to self-knowledge, self-love, and fulfillment of your life’s purpose.

If identifying your highest values is most important, setting goals and intentions according to these highest values comes second. Unless your goals and intentions align with your highest values, they have little probability of being realized. You simply won’t mobilize the full power of physical, mental, and spiritual resources to bring those goals about. Knowing your highest values is not only the key to self-knowledge and self-love; it is the means by which you can accomplish any goal you set—as long as it is a true expression of your highest values. (Of course, I don’t recommend setting goals that defy any of the known laws of the universe. For example, I wouldn’t suggest that you attempt anything such as levitation, which would violate the law of gravity—such an effort can be obviously self-defeating!) Being able to set goals in alignment with your highest values is the power of the Values Factor: the secret to living a full and meaningful life.

PASSION VERSUS HIGHEST VALUES

Because the way we talk about our lives has such tremendous impact on how we think and how we live, I’d like to take a moment to clarify a few terms. Ever since the 1985 publication of A Passion for Excellence by Tom Peters and Nancy Austin, the term “passion” has become increasingly popular. People often say, “I’ve got to find my passion” or “I’m looking for work or a relationship that I can be passionate about.” As a result, many have come to believe that the secret to an inspired life is passion.

“Passion,” however, is not a synonym for our highest values. “Passion” literally means “suffering.” It refers not to our most inspired or higher natures, but to our animal selves, the ungoverned, out-of-control emotions that often drive us toward immediate gratification, addiction, and other states that are by definition not aligned with our highest values. Passion often drives us to seek a kind of perpetual bliss that is unobtainable even as we strive to avoid unhappiness, challenges, discomfort, or suffering, which are ultimately unavoidable. So if you choose to live by your passion, you are not living according to your highest values. You are simply following the impulses and instincts of your animal nature, manifesting lust, greed, gluttony, sloth, and addiction—“passions” that can become significant obstacles to leading a fulfilled and inspired life. Indeed, when people live according to their lower values—when they follow other people’s values or subordinate themselves to social idealisms—they often seek immediate gratification, passion, or some other type of addictive pleasure. Instead of starting on the long, rewarding journey of inner fulfillment of their highest values, they seek instant gains and outer pleasures.

Rather than being driven by passion, truly fulfilled human beings will follow their mission, inspired by their highest values and most integrated being. Just as your values are completely individual and unique to you, so is your mission the expression of your own unique contribution to the world. Discovering this mission—the contribution that only you can make—is the key to a life that can be meaningful beyond your wildest dreams.

If you study the lives of the greatest contributors to our world, you will readily discover that each of them danced to the beat of his or her own unique drum, following his or her own inspiration. They chose not to subordinate themselves or their highest values to others. Instead, they forged extraordinary lives in pursuit of their own inspired missions. Groundbreaking physicist Albert Einstein put it very nicely when he said ironically, “To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.” In a similar vein, American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson noted, “Envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide.”

In other words, only by being true to yourself can you maintain your integrity, achieve your own authority, and find the fulfillment that you inwardly seek. The alternative was chillingly described by Emerson’s contemporary Henry David Thoreau, who wrote, “The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.” Thoreau saw quite clearly that most people never tap into what really inspires them. Instead, they subordinate themselves to social idealisms (what they think they “ought” to do), the values of others whom they look up to, or their own limited beliefs about what is possible for them. They stand in sharp contrast to the people who dare to leave a legacy by creating a life based on their highest values, a life that makes a unique contribution to current and future generations of humanity.

Isn’t it interesting that so many people subordinate themselves to great leaders—political, religious, and artistic leaders—and yet, the great leaders achieved their influence precisely by not subordinating themselves? Great leaders refuse to placate the social norm or to remain stuck in stagnant traditions or old paradigms. Instead, they embrace the challenge of giving birth to new ideas and new visions, and succeed in making significant and novel contributions to the world.

You can do exactly the same thing if you choose. You can resemble the great leaders who have left their mark on history. You can draw on your truest self—as expressed by your highest value—to make a great contribution to the world. True, you may run the risk of being ridiculed and violently opposed until your truth becomes self-evident. This was the fate of such religious leaders as Jesus, Moses, Buddha, and Mohammed, and of such political leaders as Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Business leaders like Walt Disney and Steve Jobs were not readily understood at first; nor were groundbreaking scientists like Galileo or Charles Darwin. Yet these are the leaders whom many respect and seek to emulate today, the leaders whose discoveries, enterprises, and visions continue to shape our world. Each man or woman’s power comes from their ability to understand and fulfill their own highest values and to shape their lives accordingly.

The stakes here are very high. If you don’t understand your highest values and build a life around them, you run the risk of being disempowered and overpowered by other people’s expectations or commands.

How do you know whether you are living according to your true highest values? Just look at your life. That old saying “Actions speak louder than words” is especially true when it comes to values: our lives are constantly demonstrating what matters to us most.

For example, if you say you value health and well-being but haven’t managed to give up smoking, then there is almost certainly something you value more than health. For example, perhaps you value the relaxation that smoking brings, and you haven’t yet found anything that relaxes you as much. The relaxation may mean so much to you that you can’t bring yourself to give up smoking, even though you know it is supposed to be bad for you. Or perhaps there are unconscious motives involved—perhaps your father smoked, and smoking makes you feel closer to him; or perhaps your smoking was an early attempt to defy your mother and you still value the sense of independence and autonomy that you associate with this once forbidden activity. (In the chapter on health, I’ll help you sort through these issues and make more empowered decisions about your health.)

Or, if you say you value financial independence but find yourself spending rather than saving and investing, then you almost certainly value something more than financial independence. Perhaps you like the idea of saving money but value the pleasure you get from indulging in a movie, a new possession, or a much-needed vacation. Or again, you might have unconscious motives: you might associate saving with feeling restricted and tied down, while you associate spending with feeling powerful and fancy-free. (In later chapters, I’ll help you sort through these issues as well.)

As I say to my clients, your life never lies. What you value most is what your life will reveal.

Unfortunately, most of us spend far too much time not consciously honoring our own highest values. Instead, we subordinate ourselves to other people’s values—or at least, we try. Perhaps we attempt to buy into the values of the family we grew up in, the community we were raised in, or the religious institution we have always belonged to. Often, we try to have it both ways. In private, we hold fast to our true highest values. In public, though, we try our best to act as though we accept the values of those whom we view as authority figures. We make sure our parents understand that we have absorbed their values of choosing security above all else, even if privately we long for a more creative or adventurous life. We make sure that the people who go to our church or synagogue understand that we follow all the rules of our religion, even if privately we harbor doubts or disagreements. We may not even expect to bring our outer and inner selves into alignment, but this attempted outer façade and inner repression takes its toll.

Most people experience conflicts of this kind. As a result, they live out the gloomy observation of Thoreau, leading quiet lives of desperation, rather than the amazing life of inspiration that comes from knowing and living according to their own highest values. Anytime you expect yourself to live outside your own highest values, you will probably perceive your life as frustrating or even daunting as true meaning and fulfillment seem to elude you.

So let’s make the Values Factor work for you by identifying your true highest values! We’ll begin by uncovering the social idealisms that may have you in their grip—notions that you may have been blindly attempting to follow rather than doing the diligent work of identifying your true highest values. In order to identify our “love to’s,” we may first need to identify our “shoulds.”

Exercise 1. Identify Your Social Idealisms

Instructions: Write down each idea you hold expressing that you “should,” “have to,” or are “supposed to” do something. Then write down which authority figure or life situation gave you that message.

Ideas expressing “should,” “have to,” or “supposed to”	Where this idea came from
I should save and invest my money.	father, wealth-building books

SIGNS OF LIVING BY SOMEONE
ELSE’S VALUES

1. You hear yourself using imperative language.

I should be doing this.
I ought to be doing that.
I am supposed to be doing this.
I need to do that.
I must do this.

2. You experience the ABCD’s of negativity.

A = Anger and Aggression

B = Blame and Betrayal

C = Criticism and Challenge

D = Despair and Depression

YOUR HIGHEST VALUES OR
SOMEONE ELSE’S?

Now, let’s get one thing clear. I am not for a moment suggesting that there must be an opposition between the values you were raised with and the values you genuinely hold. Nor am I suggesting that your values must be “selfish,” as opposed to the “unselfish” values embodied in social idealisms. History is full of individuals whose apparent highest values centered on fighting for human rights, protecting the environment, improving the lives of animals, discovering new cures for deadly diseases, spreading knowledge, or making beautiful art. Likewise, many great entrepreneurs and business leaders had a vision for how to make the world a greater place through providing products and services that millions of people needed. In all of these cases, each individual made an enormous contribution to humanity—but that contribution was possible only because they lived by their own highest values.

So you don’t need to blindly reject all of the values or social idealisms you were raised with. But neither can you simply assume that these values are necessarily your own. Whether your values involve building wealth or curing cancer, writing poetry or running a restaurant, raising a family or digging a garden, the key is that you identify your true highest values for yourself and then consciously craft a life that is based on fully expressing them. That is the way to mobilize your resources in service of your mission. That is the way to create the inspired and fulfilling life that can make your work feel like a treat and turn every day into a vacation. And that is the way to create deep, fulfilling, authentic relationships with your loving, intimate partner; your family; your colleagues; and your community.

How do you know whether you are living by your own values or by someone else’s? There are two simple ways to tell:

1. Whenever you try to live according to someone else’s values, you find yourself saying “should,” “ought to,” and “have to.”

2. When you fail to do what you thought you “should,” you experience the ABCD’s of negativity—anger, blame, criticism, and despair—directed toward yourself.

Whenever I hear someone say, “I tried to do it, but I just didn’t seem to get around to it,” I understand that what they have “tried” to do isn’t really all that important to them. What was truly more important to them was what they kept doing instead! That is why they kept doing it. So if you say you want to do something but you are not doing it, your actions reveal that this action is not really important to you.

In other words, saying, “I have to…” or “I should…” is a kind of fantasy in which you try to convince yourself that something outside of your true highest values really is important to you. Then, when you fail to do what you “should,” you beat yourself up. The ABCD’s of negativity are likely to follow. However, that beating yourself up is actually a gift! Why? Because it’s your way of getting yourself to set authentic goals according to your true highest values. It may feel as though you are “sabotaging” yourself, that you can’t stay focused, or that you can’t stay disciplined. You might even say to yourself, “What is wrong with me? Why can’t I do what I say I should do?” But whenever you try to force your mind and body to do something that does not fit who you truly are, your whole self rebels. Your apparent “failure” is really your authentic self asking to be heard. The ABCD’s of negativity are the pains that reveal how out of touch you are with your true highest values.

How can you return to your true highest values? One useful step is to ask yourself what you truly love doing. Move on to Exercise 2 to learn more.

Exercise 2. Discover What You Love

To identify your true highest values, begin by asking yourself what you love to do. What activities inspire you? Which situations do you find meaningful? What relationships do you feel deeply connected to? Discovering what you love and what inspires you will help connect you to your highest values.

Instructions: Complete the statement “I love to…” as often as you can, each time identifying a different activity that you truly love.

For example:

I love to…spend time with my children.

I love to…go out to dinner at a quiet restaurant with someone I enjoy talking to.

I love to…grow my business.

I love to…negotiate complicated deals.

I love to…hang out with my friends.

I love to…
I love to…
I love to…
I love to…
I love to…
I love to…

Now, look over what you wrote. In the box on the right, put a check next to the activities that you find most inspiring.

SIGNS OF LIVING BY YOUR OWN
HIGHEST VALUES

1. You hear yourself using affirmative language.

I love doing this.
I am inspired by doing that.
I dream of doing this.
I feel it is my destiny to do that.
I choose and live to do this.

2. You experience an alignment between your highest values and your actions.

I have done exactly as I dreamed and planned.
I am inspired by the way I am acting.
I am enthused about what I am doing.
I love what I am doing.
I am grateful to be able to do what I love.

YOUR HIGHEST VALUES
REVEAL YOUR IDENTITY

One of the great things about getting in touch with your highest values is that you thereby discover who you are. Whatever you value most in life ultimately determines your identity.

Think about what happens when someone asks, “Who are you?”

If you have young children and your highest value is your children, you will answer, “I’m a mother” or “I’m a father.”

If owning a business represents your highest value, you will answer, “I’m an entrepreneur.”

If your highest value involves writing, painting, or engaging in some other artistic activity, you might well answer, “I’m an artist,” even if you earn your living as a waitress or an auto mechanic. If you’re a child, and your highest value is school, you might say, “I’m a fifth-grader.” But if your highest value is sports or games, you might reply, “I’m a baseball player” or “I’m a seventh-level dragon master.”

If your highest value is your religion, you might identify yourself by saying, “I’m a Christian,” “I’m a Muslim,” or “I’m a Jew.” If your highest value is your sexuality or your looks, you might answer, “I’m a beautiful woman” or “I’m a real ladies’ man!” or even “I’m a great lover.” If your highest value is embodied in your hobby or a vocation, you might say, “I’m a vintage records collector,” “I’m a golfer,” or “I’m a seasoned traveler.” Whatever you most value determines who you are.

Discovering your identity is a powerful route to identifying your values. Explore Exercise 3 to dig deeper.

Exercise 3. Discover Your Identity

Instructions: Answer the following questions:

How do you identify yourself?

____________________________________________________________

What values does this reveal?

____________________________________________________________

How does your partner identify himself or herself?

____________________________________________________________

What values does this reveal?

____________________________________________________________

Think of one of your friends. How does that person identify himself or herself?

____________________________________________________________

What values does this reveal?

____________________________________________________________

Think of a colleague. How does that person identify
himself or herself?

____________________________________________________________

What values does this reveal?

____________________________________________________________

AS YOU CHANGE, SO DO YOUR
HIGHEST VALUES

Because your identity reflects your highest values, you can expect your identity to change as your highest values change and vice versa. What is important to you at one age or stage of life is likely to be quite different from what matters to you at another age or stage of life, as the following chart reflects:

Ages	Possible Values
0–10	playing, having fun, developing selective skills
10–20	social interaction
20–30	establishing a relationship, career, and financial foundation
30–40	establishing a family and a social and vocational identity
40–50	ensuring financial security and further education of your offspring
50–60	traveling and doing meaningful activities that have been delayed
60–70	leaving a legacy and preparing for mortality
70–80	contributing back to society and assisting the next generation
80–90	concentrating on activities that help you maintain your faculties and continued contribution

As we saw in the previous chapter, your highest values seldom remain stagnant. As you fill a void, a new void appears, generating a new value. Fulfillment of one value initiates a new dissatisfaction and a new void, which in turn drives you to new areas of fulfillment. Once you have developed your ability to earn money and build a career, you may desire to contribute more socially. Once you have built a career, you may wish to expand your influence, first within your profession and then beyond. Once you have established your influence in the present, you may wish to leave a legacy for future generations. Your highest values evolve as you grow into each new identity. The Values Factor can help you become aware of this evolution so that you can best align your goals and your highest values at every stage of your journey.

Your values in relationships evolve as well. In adolescence, you may wish to establish your ability to have romantic relationships and to explore what your sexual identity means to you. Once you have established your romantic or sexual identity, you may wish to move into deeper and more meaningful relationships that make greater demands upon you, enabling you to grow and change and build a life with your partner. Building a life with a partner might evolve into creating a family. When your children have grown up and left home, you may go on to create a new life with your partner, perhaps traveling the world, pursuing a great cause, or discovering new activities that the two of you now have time to share. Or you may rewrite your relationship to accommodate new ambitions at work, new involvement in the community, or new hobbies, avocations, or interests. Once again, being aware of the Values Factor can help you bring your goals and highest values into alignment.

Thinking about how your highest values have grown and evolved either gradually or abruptly can help you identify what they are now. Complete Exercise 4 to learn more about your constantly evolving highest values.

Exercise 4. Understand How Your Highest
Values Evolve

Instructions: Complete the following chart. If you have not yet reached a given stage of life, imagine what your highest values might be at that point:

Time Period	Key Values
Childhood	1.
	2.
	3.
Adolescence	1.
	2.
	3.
Early Adulthood	1.
	2.
	3.
Thirties	1.
	2.
	3.
Forties	1.
	2.
	3.
Fifties	1.
	2.
	3.
Sixties	1.
	2.
	3.
Seventies and Beyond	1.
	2.
	3.

DETERMINING YOUR HIGHEST
VALUES STEP BY STEP

Now it’s time to take a closer look at your life to see exactly which highest values it reveals today. This is a multistep process in which you keep refining your answers until your hierarchy of values finally emerges with crystal clarity.

Step 1: Answer the Following Thirteen Questions with Three Examples for Each. For Each Answer, Choose the Three Examples That Are Most Important to You.

1. How do you fill your personal or professional space?

Have you ever noticed the way things that are really not important to you go into the trash, the attic, or the storage closet? You might believe that you value your prized baseball card collection, but if you have it packed away in the attic where you never see it, the collection is probably not as important to you as those things that you see and use every day. In fact, you usually keep the things that are important to you where you can see or touch them, either at home or at work.

What does your life demonstrate through your space? When you look around your home or office, do you see family photos, sports trophies, business awards, books? Do you see beautiful objects, comfortable furniture for friends to sit on, or souvenirs of favorite places you’ve visited? Perhaps your space is full of games, puzzles, DVDs, CDs, or other forms of entertainment. Whatever you see around you is a very strong clue as to what you value most. Which three items do you fill your personal or professional space with most?

____________________________________________________________

2. How do you spend your time?

Here’s another value determinant you can count on: people make time for things that are really important to them and run out of time for things that aren’t. Even though people usually say, “I don’t have time for what really I want to do,” the truth is that they are too busy doing what is truly most important to them. And what they think they want to be doing isn’t really what’s most important. You find time for things that are really important to you. Somehow, you figure it out.

So how do you spend your time? I personally spend my days researching, writing, traveling, and teaching. Those are my four highest values. I find time for doing them…and I am too busy to ever find time for cooking, driving, and doing domestic things, which are low on my list of values. How you spend your time tells you what matters to you most. Which three actions do you truly spend your time on most?

____________________________________________________________

3. How do you spend your energy?

You have energy for the things that inspire you—the things you value most—even while you run out of energy for things that do not inspire you. That’s because things that are low among your values drain you, whereas things that are high among your values energize you. In fact, when you are doing something that you value highly, you have more energy afterward than when you started because you’re doing something that you love and are inspired by. So which three actions do you spend your energy on—and where do you get your energy?

____________________________________________________________

4. How do you spend your money?

Again, you find money for things that are valuable to you, but you don’t want to part with your money for things that are not important to you. So your choices about spending money tell you a great deal about what you value most.

Now, at this point, you might be noticing some overlap: some similarities between what you fill your space with and how you spend your time, energy, and money. That is a great sign. It means that you have already aligned a lot of your highest values, goals, and daily activities. If you notice a lot of divergence between the answers to these first four questions, you might be writing answers that are not exactly true. Perhaps you are writing what you wish or hope your answer would be, or what you think it should be according to some external authority or social idealism. The key is to identify where or how you truly spend your money. So, what are the three items you spend most of your money on and always find money for?

____________________________________________________________

5. Where do you have the most order and organization?

We bring order and organization to things that are important to us and allow chaos and disorder with things that are low on our values. So look at where you have the greatest order and organization in your life and you’ll have a true sense of what matters most to you. It could be your social calendar, your dietary regimen, your clothes and wardrobe, your business, your finances, your spiritual ritual, your cooking area, or your house.

Everyone has some item or area of life that is most organized. In my case, I see the most order and organization in my research and teaching materials, and in my itinerary for traveling. This helps me see that my values involve researching, writing, traveling, and teaching. Which three items or areas do you have most organized?

____________________________________________________________

6. Where are you most reliable, disciplined, and focused?

You don’t have to be prodded from the outside to do the things that you value the most. You are inspired from within to do those things…and so you do them. Look at the activities, relationships, and goals for which you are disciplined, reliable, and focused—the things that nobody has to get you up to do. For me, again, that’s researching, writing, traveling, and teaching. I love those activities! Which three activities are you most reliable or disciplined at doing?

____________________________________________________________

7. What do you think about, and what is your innermost dominant thought?

I’m not talking about negative self-thoughts or the things that distract you. I’m not talking about the fantasies, “shoulds,” or “oughts.” I’m talking about your most common thoughts about how you want your life—thoughts that you show slow or steady evidence of actually bringing to fruition. Which three things are you thinking about most?

____________________________________________________________

8. What do you visualize and realize?

Again, I’m not talking about fantasies. I’m asking what you visualize for your life that is slowly but surely coming true.

In my case, I visualize traveling the world and setting foot in every country on the face of the earth and teaching. That is what I visualize. And that is what I am realizing. Which three outcomes are you mostly visualizing and realizing?

____________________________________________________________

9. What is your internal dialogue?

What do you keep talking to yourself about the most? I am not asking about negative self-talk or self-aggrandizement. I want you to think of things you say to yourself about what you desire—internal dialogues that actually seem to be coming true and showing some fruits. Which three outcomes about how you would love your life to be do you talk to yourself about most?

____________________________________________________________

10. What do you talk about in social settings?

Okay, now here’s a clue that you’ll probably notice for other people as well as yourself. What are the topics that you keep wanting to bring into the conversation that nobody has to remind you to talk about? What subjects turn you into an instant extrovert?

You’ve probably noticed that there are topics that immediately bring you to life and start you talking…and others that turn you into an introvert who has nothing to say or who wants to change the subject. You can use this same insight to analyze other people’s values. If you go up to somebody and they ask you about your kids, that means that either their kids or your kids are important to them. If they say, “How’s business?” they value business. If they ask, “Are you seeing anyone new?” then relationships matter to them. Topics that attract you are a key to what you value. Which three topics do you keep wanting to talk to others about most?

____________________________________________________________

11. What inspires you?

What inspires you now? What has inspired you in the past? Who inspires you? What is common to the people who inspire you? Figuring out what inspires you most reveals what you value most. Which three people, actions, or outcomes inspire you most, and what is common to them?

____________________________________________________________

12. What are the most consistent long-term goals that you have set?

What are the three long-term goals that you have focused on that you are bringing into reality? Again, I’m not talking about the fantasies that nothing is happening with. I want the dreams you are bringing into reality slowly but surely, the dreams that have been dominating your mind and your thoughts for a while—the dreams that you are bringing into daily life, step by step by step. So which are the three most important goals that you keep focusing on that are gradually coming true and appear in your reality?

____________________________________________________________

13. What do you love to learn about most?

What topics of study inspire you the most? When you enter a bookstore, which section do you make a beeline for? Which magazines and newspapers do you subscribe to, and which sections do you turn to first? Are there nonfiction TV shows or film documentaries that you seek out? Are there topics that you find yourself thinking about or asking questions about? The three answers to these questions will help reveal your highest values.

____________________________________________________________

THE 13 QUESTIONS THAT REVEAL
YOUR HIGHEST VALUES

How do you fill your space?
How do you spend your time?
How do you spend your energy?
How do you spend your money?
Where are you most organized?
Where are you most reliable?
What dominates your thoughts?
What do you visualize most?
What do you most often talk to yourself about?
What do you most often talk to others about?
What inspires you?
What goals stand out in your life and have stood the test of time?
What topics do you love to study, read about, or research?

Step 2: Identify the Answers That Repeat Most Often

Once you’ve given three answers for each of the thirteen questions, you’ll see that among your thirty-nine answers there is a certain amount of repetition—perhaps even a lot of repetition. You may be expressing the same kinds of values in different ways—for example, “spending time with people I like,” “having a drink with my coworkers,” “going out to eat with my friends”—but if you look closely, you can see some patterns begin to emerge.

So look at the answer that is most often repeated and write beside it the number of how often it repeats. Then find the second most frequent answer, then the third, and so on, until you have ranked every single answer. This gives you a good primary indicator of what your highest values are. You can even start making decisions based on this initial hierarchy of values—and you can see how your life is already demonstrating your natural commitment to these highest values.

Step 3: Summarize and Prioritize Your Values

Based on how often your answers appear and repeat, create a list of your five most important values in priority order, with the most important value first and the least important value last:

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

This list gives you a good indicator of what your hierarchy of values is, a structure that you can start building your life around and making decisions from. The hierarchy of values on this list helps you see which values your life demonstrates to be most important.

Step 4: Double-Check Your Hierarchy of Values

To ensure that you have accurately determined your hierarchy of values, ask yourself the following questions:

When I have a choice between the first and second of the values on the list, which do I most often choose? Which one does my life most commonly demonstrate as most important?
When I have a choice between the second and third of the values on the list, which do I most often choose? Which one does my life most commonly demonstrate as most important?
When I have a choice between the third and fourth of the values on the list, which do I most often choose? Which one does my life most commonly demonstrate as most important?

Continue questioning in this way until you have examined every one of the values on your list. Then proceed to Step 5.

Step 5: If Necessary, Revise Your List

Write your final hierarchy of values in the space below:

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

Welcome to your most important values! These highest values determine your daily perceptions, decisions, and actions. They are leading you to your current destiny and determining the evolution of your life’s journey.

Step 6: Continue to Reevaluate Your Values

Because your highest values keep evolving, I suggest that you reevaluate your hierarchy of values every three months. Follow the five previous steps every three months and keep records of the evolution of your highest values along your life’s journey.

LIVING YOUR HIGHEST VALUES

Now that you have a sense of your highest values, you have the opportunity and power to reshape your life to ensure that your goals, your actions, your relationships, your career, and your highest values all align. Throughout this book, you will see how awareness of your highest values enables you to create the inspired life you dream of, one that expresses your unique contribution and mission here on earth.

In the next chapter, you will take your journey one step further as you come to understand the value of challenge. Mastering the material in that chapter will enable you to proceed with a more balanced perspective, which in turn will enable you to pursue your mission with renewed dedication and inspiration.