Values: What Are They? | In Conversation With Fabienne

Hello and welcome to In Conversation with me,

Fabienne Sandoval,

Life coach,

Author and speaker.

I talk way too much so I thought I'd put that skill to use by sharing with you this series of conversations designed to expound your awareness and knowledge of becoming secure and empowered in your self-worth.

Meet Sam,

My OBM,

Wingwoman and literal can't live without.

We tried the breakup once and it didn't work.

I'll be here to ask the juicy questions and help extract some of these powerful insights from Fabienne.

So let's begin.

So today we're going to be talking about values and why they are so important.

Hey,

So I guess my first question is what are the values?

So values are really interesting.

Values are usually completely unique to each one of us.

You know,

Whatever,

What things I value is going to be potentially really different than what you value or what anybody else values.

Okay,

And so they're usually about the best way to think about values is what is the most important things to me.

So for one person that might be family.

That might also look like health.

It might look like being in service to others.

It might look like living with purpose.

It might be about living a life of adventure.

Right,

So each person is going to have different values based on what is most important to them.

Yeah,

So how would you start?

How,

I suppose,

How would you sit and work out these values?

How would you define them?

How would you go about defining them?

Yeah,

So I have a really cool pack of values cards that we put together to make this exercise easy.

Because essentially what you need,

You know,

Sometimes you just need like a little bit of a mental jog of like,

Okay,

What would my options be in terms of what I care about,

Right?

Because it's so easy to be like,

What do I care about?

Yeah,

Sure,

Family,

Health,

My career,

You know,

Like basic things.

Yeah,

But hold on a second.

What about things like adventure?

What about things like fun?

What about,

You know,

Even beauty,

For example,

Like appreciating beauty around you,

Or acceptance,

Generosity,

Growth,

Right?

Yeah,

So many different things.

As I say,

It sounds like there's quite a list of values that you can use.

And you're saying that there's these value cards to kind of give you a bit of a mental jog.

How would you,

How would you use those cards to start with?

Well,

Yeah,

How would you use those cards to start with?

Yeah,

Sure.

So I guess wherever it was like,

Born from,

Is the idea that obviously,

Each one of us value something different.

So really,

In the process of in my like,

Coaching practice,

Getting to know clients better,

Having them do their values pretty much upfront when we're working together.

It's one of the,

One of the,

You know,

Exercises that we get into very,

Very quickly.

Because it helps me to understand them better and know what it is that they value and what they're putting their,

Their like,

Importance on.

And it also lets that person know,

Okay,

Wow,

This is what I value.

Not only that,

But this is what I want to align with.

Right?

And so the way that we would go about it,

This is where these cards were then born from.

Like,

Okay,

Let's actually create an exercise that we can do to discover what those values are for you.

So,

You know,

You can do this with,

With the cards.

Otherwise,

You can just take a number of different values.

You know,

There's lists of values around where you can go ahead and like,

Look at what those values are.

And what I would recommend that you do is essentially like,

Look at the different values and then start to put them in order of like,

Importance.

Like,

Is this important or not important?

So you might have something that's like,

Success.

That might be important.

Right?

You might have challenge.

Right?

No,

That's not that important to me.

Yeah.

Might have humor.

You might be like,

Yep,

That's very important to me.

You might have acceptance.

Yeah,

That's really important to me.

Self worth,

That's really important to me.

Maybe you might have something like health.

Yes,

That's really important.

So what will happen is you'll get a number of things into that,

That like important category that are going to be really,

Really important to you.

You're going to be like,

Wow,

I really care about these things.

And then there will be some things that just because they're not important doesn't mean that,

You know,

They're not meaningful in some way,

But it just means they don't have the most meaning to you.

Yeah.

So the idea is,

Is to essentially like narrow that list down in terms of figuring out what's most important to you.

And you want to get the values down to five.

So these are like your core,

Your five core values,

The things that drive you on a daily basis.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And the way that I suggest that you do it,

It's like,

I think what's quite nice and quite cool and what I've usually done for myself and what I usually do with clients is say,

You know,

Have a mix.

So that number five is really nice.

You can have a mix of things that you already are,

Right?

So for example,

With me,

My core values,

Ever since I ever did values,

Health has been on my values because it's something I really care about.

It's something I really prioritize.

It's something that I,

You know,

It's always of high importance to me.

So that's there and it's ongoing because it's part of like my nature.

It's part of who I am.

It's part of who I am and I always want to be in alignment with that.

But then there might be other ones that come in that are more momentarily,

Like in this moment,

In this time period,

We're focused on growing something or building something or doing something.

So for example,

Like sometimes when clients are wanting to find love,

For example,

Well,

Then we might put union on the list,

Right?

As in like coming into union with someone,

We might put love on the list or we might put family on the list if they're wanting to build that because also the values can be used as,

Yeah,

The things that naturally I am,

Also the things that I aspire to be as well.

So each of these kind of core values,

Would you then drill down even further into them?

So like if you're,

One of your core values is,

So for your health,

That's a really important thing for you.

Would you then take that value and create values underneath that?

So that yes,

Health is a great value,

But is it that you want to be fitter?

Is it,

Does it work in that way?

Yeah,

I think it's a really great way of like thinking about it.

So I would then describe it as like,

These are the things that you value and then underneath it is your actions.

So one of the things you want to do once you've come up with your five core values and you know like exactly what it is that you,

Is really,

Really most important to you and you really want to actually look at each of those values and say,

How am I living my life in alignment with that?

So for example,

Let's take,

Yeah,

Health.

Okay,

How am I living my life in alignment with health?

Like what am I doing?

And are there actions that I need to take to further that value,

To like really live my life like with integrity of that value?

And really thinking like living it out in that way.

So you have your core values,

You know what they are and you know you want to align yourself to them.

I guess,

Why is having that kind of value important?

Why is this exercise important and an essential thing to do?

So when we know what it is that we care about the most,

Because every single person has this,

Right?

This is just an exercise to get you really,

Really close,

Closer to understanding and to be really specific with yourself about like what's like,

What's of the most importance to you.

Once you have that,

It then acts as like,

It's like almost like a compass.

It tells you where you're going.

Especially if you're kind of marrying up things that you already are with things that you would aspire to be.

You've got that process of like becoming those things.

So it's like,

You're then recognizing,

Okay,

These are my values and then if we know what the actions are under those values,

I then know what to do.

I know how to conduct myself.

I know how to conduct my life.

I know what I'm going to prioritize.

I know what I'm going to say yes to.

I know what I'm going to say no to and it actually acts really,

Really well when we're making decisions as well because if you can imagine like,

Say one of your values is inner peace and you have a decision to make about something and you're like,

That's actually going to probably affect my inner peace.

Are you going to go ahead and do that thing?

It's that link between your sense of self and your mental health to a certain extent,

Isn't it?

Especially around peace is that knowing how that's going to affect your value of peace and your,

Again,

Sense of self and mental health.

Exactly.

Yeah,

100%.

So it's recognizing like,

Okay,

I'm making choices all day long in my life and one of the things that's really key is that especially when we're in coaching and I think this is an amazing way to live,

We always want to be living from a creator perspective.

We're the creator in our life.

We get to choose.

We make the choices,

Right?

So what are the choices I'm making and am I making those in alignment with what I value the most?

Because as well,

That then builds integrity.

You know,

Like saying like,

I care about these things,

Then actually following through and doing those things.

Because sometimes for some people,

Again,

Let's just come back to the health one because it's like an easy one to work with.

I think it's like a very comprehensible one as well.

Like if health means fitness,

Being physically fit,

Okay,

Am I prioritizing that daily walk?

Am I prioritizing going to the gym three times or whatever it is that you see as that fitness activity or not?

And then that's like,

Am I integrity because I can say I value it?

If I'm not taking any action towards it,

What's happening there?

Yeah,

Maybe that value isn't as strong a value as you thought to begin with.

And plus,

It also gives you a connection to other people as well,

Doesn't it?

If you have that value,

Say around health and fitness and going to the gym,

Then that's going to connect you with other people who are doing the same thing and have that same value as well.

So it has that knock on effect with relationships.

Yeah,

And it's going to dictate how you're going to spend time,

Right?

Because again,

Like if value is a high importance to you,

How are you going to be spending time?

Well,

We'd like to be doing things that are like,

Helpful,

Being healthy.

Yeah,

It's gonna also be okay,

That's also going to build my connections as well.

So you keep cutting out a bit there.

Sorry,

Fabienne.

So with with your core values,

And you do this work,

And you've you've created,

Put,

Right,

Okay,

Well,

These are my important core values.

How often would you look to repeat that kind of exercise?

Is it something that you could look at on a weekly basis?

Or how fluid is that exercise?

Yeah,

So I would say that when it comes to the actual values exercise,

Your values like,

Won't change too often,

Right?

Your values will likely change if you're having a big change in life.

Or something has has happened to you.

So I would say values,

Once a year,

It'd be a little bit more if you're having a big change in your life,

Right?

Because then likely,

Big changes means we might value different things at those moments,

Right?

Yeah,

Value exercises,

Like once a year,

Every six months,

Possibly,

Make sure that it's still valid.

What part you want to align is the actions that fall out of those values,

Because they are the compass,

Right?

So like,

The values are going to,

Where am I going to go?

And so it's the physical actions that I'm going to do to be accountable to those values.

So with that,

I always recommend,

Like,

You know,

If you're doing goal setting,

Ideally,

You've got these actions out of those values,

Goals,

Those working towards,

Possibly,

You want to do a check in like every Sunday,

And then a bigger check in once a month,

Because that's your accountability to yourself of like,

How am I showing up for those things?

How am I creating that moving towards more that kind of person that I envision being?

That's really important from kind of like relationship point of view,

That if you're checking in,

And making sure that you are working towards those values of being,

I don't know,

More open,

More honest,

Maybe having that check in will hold you accountable.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And it's like,

It's like with any good goal setting,

We,

You know,

I think one of the reasons why people don't achieve their goals,

Or what they set out to do,

Is because often they set the goal,

They don't check in with their self,

There's no accountability.

There's no like,

How am I progressing towards that?

And then,

And then,

You know,

Maybe they're like,

Oh,

Oops,

I didn't really achieve it.

Oh,

I guess goals don't work.

And it's like,

No,

That's not the nature of goal setting,

You want to be actively like involved in that goal,

You're showing up for it,

You want to be connected with it.

So yeah,

I would always say like,

Once a week is great,

If you can do a little check in around the week and just be like,

Okay,

How did I show up for this?

What did I do that was getting me closer to that,

To living my life with alignment of that value?

And then a bigger one overall,

On a monthly basis,

Where you can then say,

Okay,

Well,

This month,

I'm noticing that maybe,

Huh,

I didn't really get to the gym.

Maybe the gym doesn't work for me.

Maybe I need a different kind of activity that I need to do.

And then we get the chance to like actually kind of renegotiate the goal,

Renegotiate the action,

And continue to work towards that value.

Or you can say,

Maybe be like,

Actually,

I'm not sure that value is important to me.

Yeah.

Well,

That's it.

It's quite a personal thing,

Isn't it?

There's no right or wrong answer when it comes to defining your own personal values,

Because it should be what works for you,

What is going to make you feel better and give you a better sense of self-awareness.

So like you say,

If going to the gym isn't the one for you,

It shouldn't be seen as a knockback or a negative.

It's almost like,

Okay,

Well,

That doesn't work.

Let's move on to something else.

And that's the growth within using your values.

Exactly.

And the connection to them,

Like the regular connection to them of realizing like,

That isn't working.

So what can I do to keep moving forward with this piece?

And,

You know,

As well,

Recognizing that we go through like different seasons of life.

So,

You know,

At times where,

You know,

Sometimes I've set my values and then I've got the same values for like two years on it,

Three years on it.

Especially while I was working on like my like vision of life in terms of like my purpose and what I wanted to do from like a career kind of stance and where I wanted to live and like what my environment would be and stuff like that.

Like my values for the same,

Like pretty much like three,

Probably even like,

Yeah,

Three,

Four,

And the same values.

So it was like living with that vision.

In the last couple of years,

Two,

Three years,

My values have changed quite a lot.

My life has gone through different seasons and different changes.

And I've started to realize like,

Okay,

I'm moving into a new kind of chapter where actually I'm looking for different things.

And so as I've been trying to find what that new vision is,

My values have changed a little bit here and there until I have found something that's become more solid and more kind of steadfast in terms of that's finally what I'm looking for.

So,

You know,

It's also okay to recognize that like we might need to change the values a few times over to get to exactly what they need to be.

That's a great thing,

That kind of fluidity.

So again,

Thank you very much for talking to us about the values and what they are.

As basically what I'm getting from that is that,

You know,

It's,

If you have a commitment to uncovering your values and working towards them,

You're just going to have a great sense of purpose.

You're going to be able to make these decisions and get a better understanding of yourself and potentially the people around you and your relationships.

So it's been really,

Really interesting.

Thank you very,

Very much for talking to me about this.

You're so welcome.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

And,

You know,

As you say,

Like values are really getting you towards the life that you are looking to create.

So they're a great addition to bring in to,

Yeah,

Bring more self-awareness in,

But also like,

Okay,

What's the vision and where am I going?

Perfect.

Thank you.

Thank you.