In the previous posts, we talked about how to discover your personal and core values in less than 10 minutes and how to write a value statement. In this post I am going to talk about developing your personal values.
Developing Your Personal Values
Developing your personal values is a three step process. You need to define the value clearly and then clarify it further. After that, create value-based guidelines to support your personal values. Once you have the guidelines, start the 30 day roll-out. This is a really quick summary of development process. Lets look at the process in detail.
- Define Clearly – The first step to start developing your personal values is to define the value clearly. What do you mean by excellence, for example. If excellence is one of the value you have selected, what does it mean to you? Define what is excellence. Use values statement for defining your personal values. For example, your value statement might be, “I will excel in everything I do.”
- Create a checklist– Once you have put a definition to the values, the next step is to create a checklist. This list should have specific value-based guidelines that are in line with the value statement. Based on your values statement for excellence, develop a checklist of value-based guidelines. Some of the guidelines may be:
- I will stay updated on ___ (the subject you want to excel in).
- I will give 100% in everything I do and will not compromise for less
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- Start the 30 day roll-out – Now that you have a list of value-based guidelines that defines each personal value you discovered, it is time to implement the set of values. In the next 30 days, resolve to make all decisions, take all actions with the set of values in mind. Anything you do, no matter what, should support your personal value system. Continuing our example about excellence – to embed excellence in your value system, you should start by making small commitments. Make some small commitments and keep them and little bigger ones and keep them. Start with just first value-based task and embed it and then next one and the next one. At the end of 30 days, look back and find where you came short and improve those in coming days.
Case Study - Integrity
Lets take another example and apply the above steps to it. Lets assume, integrity is one of your personal values. Now we will apply the three-step approach to your personal value.
- Define Clearly – What does Integrity mean to you? Define it. Lets say we define integrity as below.
Integrity is being honest and fair with everyone in my daily life. It means that I would make decisions and take actions based on facts and be honest in all parts of my life.”
- Create a checklist – Now that you have defined integrity, break it down and create a list of value-based guidelines. Remember not to create too long list or its effect might be lost. 4-5 tasks should be the limit. In this case, some of the guidelines could be:
- I will be answer all the questions honestly.
- I will be honest when dealing with everyone
- I will treat everyone fairly.
- I will not judge anyone and treat people fairly
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- Start the 30 day roll-out – You have created the checklist ready to use. Number of guidelines may vary with the values. But remember the tip in the above point. Don’t make the checklist too long. Now, in case you just can’t resist making it long go ahead and fulfill your desire. But when you come to this stage and are ready to implement, select only 4-5 guidelines to implement in a 30-day span. Use the approach discussed in previous section. Make small commitments, start with just one guideline and keep the commitment. Commit to following another guideline and the previous one and keep the commitment. After 30 days, review your actions and improve.
How do you develop new values? Have you used 30 day roll-outs before? How about 30-day tests have you used that?
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