A Practical Values Reflection

It can be useful occasionally to step away from the usual measures of professional progress and ask yourself what actually matters to you at this point in your life. Try identifying four or five values that you would like to be visible in the way you work and live. These might include integrity, family, curiosity, courage, kindness, independence, health, contribution, friendship or something quite different, but the important thing is that they are genuinely yours rather than things you feel you ought to value.

Once you have identified them, consider how visible each value has been in your life over the last few months. Rather than asking whether you have achieved it, ask what somebody observing your choices, diary and use of time might conclude about what matters to you. There can sometimes be an interesting difference between the values we say are important and the values that our everyday behaviour appears to demonstrate.

Finally, choose one value where you feel there may be a gap and consider one small change that would bring the way you are living slightly closer to it. This does not need to involve a major career or lifestyle decision, and in many cases it will be something quite ordinary. The purpose is simply to notice whether the direction in which you are travelling remains reasonably consistent with the things you have decided matter to you.