Value-Driven Living || What it Is and How It Changes EVERYTHING

Before you dive head first into a list of goals or resolutions for the new year, I want you to do something first. Get clear about your values. In this episode I will teach you why that matters, down to the impact it can have on your smallest day-to-day decisions. And for those of you asking, "What even are my values?" I created the Ultimate Values Exercise, a thorough, yet approachable, place to start. (And here's the 15 minute online quiz I mentioned.)

Tune in to hear four truths about values, my top five values, and an extremely vulnerable story related to one of them: leadership. It's a voice memo I recorded during a low point with the podcast, one that I never intended to ever air. I'm sharing it now to illustrate how knowing my values, and clinging to them, kept me going during a lot of self doubt. I hope you feel inspired and equipped to begin living a more value driven life that is truly fulfilling, meaningful, and clear.

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TRANSCRIPT

Monica: Welcome to About Progress. I'm Monica Packer, a regular mom and recovering perfectionist who uncovered the truest model to dramatic but lasting personal growth. It's progress made practical. Join us to leave the extremes behind and instead learn how to do something to grow in ways that. Women love to blame themselves when they fail at habits, and I am here to tell you that it's not your fault to learn the number one reason why women must do habits differently.

Sign up for my free class of the same [email protected] slash habit class. Again, it's totally free.

Happy New Year. Happy 2023. Now, I'll admit right off the bat that I'm actually recording this just a few days before Christmas of 2022, but I got something really exciting in the mail yesterday that really relates to the new year. I got my goal planner that I used for the year and a new day planner that I'm excited to try out too.

A lot of us are feeling that excitement, maybe even the pressure to meet goals and resolutions. And if you're like me and you are ready to dig in, or if you're like the old me and you're ready to try for the first time in a long time, if ever Before you do that, I want you to take a quick pause and I want you to do something else first.

I want you to get clear about what your values. For months I have been hinting on the podcast that I was going to have a full episode about values alone. Getting clear on my values not only changed how I approach things like goals and resolutions, but even more importantly, it's changed my day-to-day life, even down to the small decisions I make .

And I know I'm not alone in this realization. In fact, a couple weeks ago, mid-December, we aired an incredible episode with Kimberly Quinlan. She's a licensed marriage and family therapist, and we were just talking about what to do about anxiety that people have coming into the new year. So if you're stuck in that, go and listen to that episode.

but she said something in this episode that made me smile because not only is it so timely to what I knew I was going to be talking about, but it's so nice to see that many, many others have had this experience too. And I'm gonna actually read a quote. She said, quote, don't make a goal list for the new year.

Don't make a resolution list. Just get really good at knowing what your values are and they will guide you for the rest of the year, unquote. Now her advice there was not like a straight up do not make goals. That was for those who are in a different season of life where it really is bringing up a lot of anxiety.

And I have been there, boy have I been there. So whether you, wherever you are on the spectrum of goal making right now, getting really clear on your values will guide whether or not you do those goals and resolutions, how you make them. But even more important. , just like I experienced and continue to experience it will shift your day-to-day life.

And why is that? . Well, one of our progressors in our community said it best. Her name was Tanya, and she wrote this in a public comment on my Instagram feed in response to a conversation we were having about an empty, well, you know how they're like, don't pull for an empty Well, but I think for many of us, we are not only pulling from an empty, well, we're pulling from a leaking well, because there's cracks in this well, and they can be many different things for many different people.

I love how Tanya shared about what her cracks were and how it relates to our discussion today. She says, quote for me, the cracks in my, well, were not knowing my personal values. It prevented me from living authentically, and it kept me drained and unfulfilled. Figuring out my personal values and then aligning my life to those values played a huge role in filling the cracks.

If you keep struggling with things like decision making, goal making and follow through, habit formation, even just that general feeling in your life that something's not quite right, like things are off and you're a little stuck, the likelihood is is that you need to get some clarity about values and what yours.

Brene Brown says that a value is a way of being or believing that we hold important. I love that definition so much. I'll say it one more time. A way of being or believing that we hold important. I see values as a driving force in your life. they can help you make decisions both in the moment and in the bigger picture.

They help you own your ability to choose better in your life, and they help you rise above and move through circumstances that you can't choose. They can also, you know, direct how you prioritize your time and how you're showing up to your relationships, the habits you make, and the goals that you are deciding for yourself when you are not being driven by your values.

What you are being driven by instead are prescriptions. A lot of us call these shoulds. When this happens, not only will it not feel good, the choices that you're making, you will in general feel out of alignment. . That's kind of hard to explain what that feels like, but it's just that kind of stuck feeling I shared a little bit earlier.

I'll paint one picture though for you. I worked with an incredible client who was especially bound by these prescriptions, by the shoulds. when we were trying to work through where she was stuck the most in her life, and I asked her if she had some clarity about her values, what she wanted, what she needed, what she held true to herself, what she wanted to believe and live like.

Oh, that was like asking her to turn inside out, like have her organs on the outside of her body because her choices had been so grounded. In prescriptions outside of herself For decades, she didn't even know how to tap in and as a result, she felt really confused about what she wanted and needed in her life.

She also felt really burnt out and resentful of how she was needing to spend every single day and, and how she was showing up to her responsibilities she felt found herself being re really resentful of. , that's what out of alignment will feel like. It's just that general confusion, burnout, resentment, sadness, stuckness.

When we are not grounded and being driven by your values, that's what you're going to be experiencing. A quick note on this though, what's so cool about knowing your values is that it. Very well be the thing that helps you choose some shoulds in your life. I have a whole growth spurt on how we can choose our shoulds, and I'll reference that in the show notes for you.

But the sh the nutshell version of it is that shoulds can be chosen and values can help you know when and how to do that. Going back to that client I just shared about in large ways, That's what happened for her once we did the work and we identified her values, which was a journey in and of itself, and I'm gonna reference that journey in a moment.

But once she was able to identify those values, She also found that she was still choosing a lot of the shoulds she had been carrying around in her life for decades about how she should show up, how she should clean her house, how she should parent, how um, she should work. Like everything was being bound by that.

But she ended up choosing a lot of those shoulds still, but they came from a different place because they came from her. And because of that, she no longer felt confused or burnt out or resentful. She could own her choices. She could own the prescriptions she was taking on for herself because they were in alignment with who she deeply was.

This, my friends, is totally possible for.

Here's where I hope you are asking the question, how? How do I identify my values? , you're in good luck because I happen to be a How girl . I'm one of those people. It's like, okay, that's so great to know that how? How do we apply it? What do I do? What are the steps I take? Ooh, I am here for this because let me tell you something.

uncovering our values. Honestly, isn't that simple? I know because I've been down that frustrating path of trying to identify them. And while the internet is a wonderful resource, it also can be kind of a vacuum resource in this regard. And as I was looking to name my own values, I found that my own mind became blank.

I didn't have the language for being able to just drum up my values, and I also found that the shoulds and the prescriptions just kind of swept right in. Like I should say health, or I should say spirituality. And it was hard for me to figure out what my values were easily on my own. So I have been on a quest to find a go-to place that helps.

Identifying values for years, both for myself and to help the women that I've worked with to find their own values. And I've been pretty disappointed by what I've found. So a few years ago, I came up with my own practical resource to help you identify your values, and it's gonna be totally free for you, so don't worry,

I call it the ultimate values exercise. and it combines the worthy resources I could find in those warm holes on the internet and things that I was able to add to them that I found especially helpful in naming values. I'm gonna come back to the ultimate values exercise in a moment and where you can get it.

But first I wanna share some truths about values that you need to know before you. Anywhere online or if you use my resource, you don't have to, but regardless of what you do, I want you to embrace these truths. There are four of them. I'm gonna share two now and two more after the break and I'm gonna talk more about where you can go to get some resources, cuz I have several for you and a personal story that helps paint the picture of why value-driven living can change everything about your.

Okay, let's dig into the truths about values. The first truth I want you to embrace is really hard to do, but it, it is essential to really identifying your values outside of shoulds and prescriptions. And it's this, all values are good. All values are good. That means that someone might value freedom. And the most important person in their life might value loyalty.

And both of these values are right and good, even if they seem to be competing. When you are identifying your values, it's so key that you remove judgment from what the values are that you find yourself gravitating to. When I was working on identifying. . One that kept coming up for me that I really didn't like for a while was beauty.

Every time I saw that value pop up, whether I took an online quiz or I went through like a longer resource and I was, you know, trying different pr, different ways of identifying him, every time that value came up, I would get a little guilty. and I feel some embarrassment about that. Like why beauty, why is that rising to the top?

It's so superficial. It's, it feels like it goes against about, uh, against a lot of what I preach, you know, about progress over perfectionism and all this stuff. But when I was able to remove the judgment instead and just see this value for what it was, I could embrace that it was good and it was representative of who I am for many reasons.

And one of them is that I love to, I identify what's beautiful out in the world. I love being outside of nature in large part because I'm attracted and pulled to the beauty I see there. I love to make things beautiful in my home. This is a big priority that has helped me really feel in alignment with my life, but also good on my day-to-day life because my home has been made by my hands to.

Beautiful. I really embrace this value now, and I see it as good. So that first truth was all values are good. The second truth is values need to be limited in number. . This is another reason why identifying values is really tricky, because when you're taking quizzes or you're going through long lists of what values are and you're trying to choose some and pull them out, you might choose like a hundred , cuz they all sound good, , and they all sound like kind of right.

But the research shows, and this is from Brene Brown's research, that in order to have an aligned life with your values, The number that you hold at any time needs to be very limited. She says the fewer the better, but the top should be around five. So regardless of what resource you're gonna choose from, what I'm gonna offer you to you next know that if you want to truly be in a place where.

Being driven by your values in your life, then they need to be limited in number, narrow it down to just a few.

I have two more truths for you and much more to come, but first quick word from our sponsor.

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I know it will still not be a smooth road, but the mindset shifts and practical tips will keep me on the path that will help me form habits aligned with my values. Friends, it is time to prioritize yourself by prioritizing just even a few ways that you are helping support yourself via habit. You can check out the sticky habit [email protected] slash sticky habit method.

We've covered two truths already, and I have two more for you. A quick recap though, all values are good. Values need to be limited in number. The third truth is values drive both the big and the small picture. , I've alluded to this a little bit in this episode, right? It can help you with the bigger life decisions, the bigger goals, like the big, big picture when you're blowing out things and you're trying to look it from a bird's eye view and guide your life.

but this is what we often miss. Those values not only help with the big picture, they sweep in with a small picture, even in how you're gonna show up to a kid asking you a question that's a little tricky. Or how you're going to deal with some home management disparity. Like maybe you're, you are doing far more than you can do right now, and you need your spouse or partner to step up in some ways.

And how can you show up to that conversation? Honestly, values can even shift how you grocery shop. I mean, it doesn't have to be that dramatic, but I think if you dig into this truth, you will be surprised just how clearly values do drive both the big and the small picture. And the fourth and final truth I have for you about values is that values are allowed to change.

A lot of us wait to define our values because we feel this overwhelming pressure to make them last the rest of our lives. , you don't have to do this because they're allowed to change. . That means they are allowed to be flexible with your times and seasons. You can shift out that limited number that you have.

You can alternate some in, push some out based off of your life and just your own growth and development. You're gonna keep changing the rest of your life, and that's okay. Your values are allowed to shift as well. As another part of this that values are allow allowed to change. I would also say you're allowed to tweak the resources you find.

You don't have to just pull from quizzes and lists that you see. You can create your own values too. It can be very individual and even quote unquote made up. So let's review all these truths about values. The first is all values are good. The second is values need to be limited in. The third is values drive.

Both the big and small picture and four values are allowed to change. I referenced my quest to come up with a practical guide to help women with this, and again, it's called the ultimate values exercise. Now you can go to about progress.com/values and you can get that exercise emailed to you right away and totally for.

And not only will it provide possible value names for you to choose from, so you're not just trying to like, you know, have someone point at you and be like, what are your values? And you're like, I don't know. Who am I? What is this world? What is life? You know, ? And that's kind of my reaction to those kind of settings.

So not only will you get value names and definitions, this ultimate values exercise. Guide you through a process to help you narrow them down, and I normally reserve this exercise for clients and those in finding me, but I couldn't talk about values and not provide this for you, so you get it for totally free.

Again, it's about progress.com/values. Now let's say that's just one hurdle too many for you, or maybe it takes too much. And that's understandable, and I'll be honest, this ultimate values exercise is ultimate. It will take some time, usually between a half an hour to an hour. And you know me by now, I hope, and that my goal is for you to just do something.

if you're in a season right now where you need to have the just the something option. I have two other options for you that you can do as soon as you finish listening to this episode. Both of them are online quizzes. One takes about 15 to 20 minutes and the other takes like five to 10 minutes. So think about where you are with your time, and you can go and do one of those online quizzes, and I think they're enough to go off of.

But as most online quizzes go, they likely won't deliver exactly the values that fit you. So again, go back to that final truth that I gave to you. Values are allowed to change, meaning you can make them your own, alter them. Say that word isn't quite it, but this word seems more representative of me and my values.

So I will link all of those options in the show notes for you. The short online quiz, the medium online quiz, and the ultimate values exercise, regardless of what you. Here is your kick in the pants. Knowing your values matters truly and in ways that I know will surprise you. Do you know how many clients I've had that have told me that defining their values was one of the most important things they caught from coaching?

From working on their habits to their relationships, to becoming better decision makers, knowing their values was pivotal to guiding all of our work together. It's one of the first things I do with clients, and here's the great thing, is you don't have to pay the thousands that these clients did for one-on-one coaching in order to define yours.

So do this for your goals and resolutions. Do it for the habits you want to work on this coming year. Do it for the small picture too, so that. How you're showing up to your life is driven by you because they're based in your values.

With that kick in the pants behind us. I'm now gonna share what my current values are, and they've been kind of my current values for the last, I don't know, couple years. And I'm gonna take one of those values and share with you how it is, has, um, in particular shaped me the last 18 months especially. So here are my current values.

One, love of learning, two, creativity. Three self-development, four beauty, and five leadership. And just so you know, that number is not listed in number of importance. They're all pretty equal to me. I'm gonna tell you about how one value in particular has been really important to me. It's leadership. The value of leadership is pretty loaded and layered for.

my entire life, I've been really drawn to leading and I could flourish within that value of leadership in grade school and high school because I had more obvious opportunities. Like I could run for class office or I could lead the flute section and band. And even in college, I could find ways to lead as a mentor for freshman students.

That was my job for several years. , but I found that post-graduation in my life, those opportunities were not so obvious anymore, especially after I stopped working as a teacher once my oldest was born and I was 25 years old. So that's like still the beginning of your life, right? But to make this even more complicated, the opportunities weren't so apparent.

Right? But I also found myself as an adult woman not being praised for my power, for my leadership. For some reason that praise could come more growing up, right, in those more obvious roles. But as an adult woman, I learned pretty quickly that having a strong voice is pretty complicated. You get judged very quickly as bossy or even annoying, or particular or itchy with the B letter in front of it.

he catched my drift there. So as a result, you know, as a growing adult, I began to stuff this part of me down deep inside me for years. It just hurt too much to be judged or even, even worse, it hurt more to be dismissed. And I just kind of protected myself from that judgment and dismissal and hid this, this part of me that felt this urge to.

and that's actually when I got to the part of my story that I'm sure you're sick of hearing about . The the time where I felt really lost and stuck in the beautiful life I always wanted as I was approaching 30 years old. I've shared this before. I didn't know just who I was anymore. I didn't know who am I, I didn't know, but I also didn't like who I'd become, and I knew that things had to shift in my life and I had to start with figuring out who I was.

and of course you should don't know this by now. This led to my progress over perfection experiment because that was my number one, uh, obstacle holding me back in my life was perfectionism. It also led to my original Do Something list, which was originally called the 30 before 30 list, which led to me starting my podcast.

the podcast was such a gift in my life at this time, especially because without intentionally defining them, I found myself leaning into parts of myself, including my values that had been long silent. I was becoming creative again. I was learning. I was working on developing myself again. But for years, even through the podcast, I did something without realizing fully what I was doing, and I also didn't realize how damaging it.

I hid behind other people. If you're fairly new to the podcast, you might not know this, but about Progress was only an interview show for a very long time, and yes, it's because I love to learn from experts and also learning from a variety of people and their stories. But underlying that choice was a belief I had that people weren't coming to the podcast to hear.

So I hid behind these guests. I even literally put their names first in the title for the long time of every episode title. It was the name of the person first, and I rarely taught through my own solo episodes. , but that belief that people weren't even listening to the podcast for me was confirmed in many ways too.

Once I started coaching, for example, and teaching more outside of the podcast business was at a Snell's pace. Women were not signing up for my courses, for my coaching, and I even lost money on workshops. I tried to teach in person because of how few women signed. for years with these offerings. I was shocked when anyone rose their hand and said, I want that.

And I was like, me? Are you sure this all came to head for me? Was something that is so. , seemingly dumb, but felt really devastating, and that was a dramatic drop in my listenership. Now as a podcaster, you always know that numbers are gonna go on a roller coaster, but they still tend to have this kind of, um, middle line that.

is the average, but my average was like suddenly dropping. And that doesn't just mean that new people aren't coming to listen to the podcast. It also means that the people who have listened for a long time are suddenly not listening anymore. And this shift was so dramatic. It was really hard to not take it personally, especially because at this point in my work, I felt like I was doing.

Better than I ever had. I felt like I had incredible guests, really good conversations that I had improved a lot in my own personal skills behind interviewing and podcasting and all of that. And yet the numbers did not lie. And because of that, I did something kind of dramatic in the podcasting world where you're like, consistency is key to growth.

And I took two months off. because of many reasons. One was so that I could figure out how to fix this, but two, it was also to figure out if I wanted to keep trying anymore. . Now, during this time I kind of did something weird , and I recorded the way I was feeling about this because for me, why it felt so hurtful.

It was just another example in my life where I felt like I was being told. To be quiet. I believed in my message so much with this podcast, but it was so apparent to me that people didn't believe in me as the messenger. . So as one of these times where I was like re, you know, trying to really process my emotions, I recorded it on an audio file on my phone while I was driving around almost as this audio journal entry, and I was thinking about potentially sharing it with my incredible business coach.

Shout out to Sarah Grace Allred, and I'm gonna share a little bit of that with you right now. . It's not pretty my friends, but I think it can just give you a little glimpse on what I was feeling

today. I've just been weighed down with crushing self-doubt.

It's one of those days where you just have to kind of lean into your feelings. I'm usually an expert at out producing them or running away from 'em, and I'm trying better to not do that, but just as

hitting me hard today, just the thread of what I've been struggling with in so many ways and for so long is, message. I feel like I get to sit down to shut up, that I don't get to speak. I don't, I don't get to be heard. People don't want to hear what I have to say. Someone, someone else could say it and they listen, but not me.

Why? Why try? Why, why? Put in all this?

That doesn't matter because I care a lot about what I do and I think I'm good at it, but I just feel crushed.

If you could see my face right now, as I listen to that voice memo, you'll see a bright red face . It's kind of embarrassing and vulnerable to share that with. Now I mentioned my business coach.

She and I worked together to kind of get some clarity on what needed to shift with the podcast. And it was thanks to her that we had the biggest realization. She said, Monica, I think you are missing from your own podcast. And at first I was like, what are you talking about ? That doesn't make sense. Like I'm everywhere.

But then when we really dug into that, I had to own that she was right, that it was primarily about interviews and guests, and that I wasn't speaking up and using my voice. . And so as part of my decision to continue with the podcast, I also decided to do it differently. And for me, that meant throwing what felt like the biggest hail Mary I had ever thrown in shifts to my formatting, my timing, um, adding music and stuff like that.

But the biggest one was that I was now going to become the central voice to my. . We even thought about putting away interviews all together, but ultimately we landed somewhere kind of like in a good, sweet spot. But that's when I really threw that Hail Mary of saying, my message matters, and I, as the messenger matters too.

And it was weirdly terrifying. I couldn't hide behind the guests anymore. I had to own my spot as the leader of this community, and that meant using my voice in ways that before I just tried to be this pleasant messenger. So what's on the other side of this? Because you might want to know that. So what shifts did that create and me stepping up to my spot as a leader of this c.

The reality is not this movie re like finale re, where I have this montage of like more and more people listening and you see people sharing the podcast and the numbers are rising and like me and my team and my family are jumping around and celebrating, oh, how I wish . The truth is, is that my numbers kind of went back, but not really.

But what is the better truth of this is. My podcast feels good to me. It was something magical about taking the one value that was really missing for my work here, which was leadership and getting in more alignment with it. That helped me find more fulfillment in it just as it was, and that to me is the greatest outcome I could have hoped for, especially.

not everything had to change in order for me to feel different about what I was doing. And that lesson has been true, not just for me, but for many, many women, including that client I talked to you about in the beginning. When you really align your life with your values. You are taking on ownership of your choices in beautiful and deep ways that can often make the very same choices feel completely different.

Now practically, of course, it's also shifted the goals I've created for this podcast, the work that I've done. And the same is true in my greater life, like when I am aligned with my values, they also direct my decision making, my goals, my habit formation, how I parent everything. It's truly about value driven.

Living your whole life can revolve around these values. . One surprising side effect for me has been an increase in confidence. That's really what took a big beating for me, and you know, I'm still working on it, but I would say realigning how I was choosing in my life to my values, how I was making choices, and aligning those with my values, instilled a better confidence in me to keep going and not have it so dependent like that.

Confidence be so dependent on how the outcomes. and yeah, that's transcended everything else too. I have more confidence in being a leader in my home, in my neighborhood, in my church community, in ways that before I was really shying away from, and even scared to put myself out there. Values drive an aligned life, one that is fulfilling, meaningful, and clear.

One where you feel confident in your decisions and in your purpose. I want you to have a value driven life.

I know that was a very dramatic saga of a story and I appreciate that you listened, especially because I don't normally share like how the sausage is made because honestly I know it's not not interesting , so I appreciate that. I could share that with you and. Overall, I hope this episode gave you the hug and kick in the pants that you need to grow.

And I'm gonna share the progress pointers from this episode. These are the notes I take so you don't have to, and you get them in a graphic form each Wednesday if you are enrolled to our Go Getter newsletter. Number one, values act as a driving force in our lives. They provide clarity, direction, and confidence to everything from decision making to have formation.

Two, when our choices and behaviors don't reflect our values, we feel out of alignment. Three, remember these truths about values. All values are good. Values need to be limited. Values drive both the big and small picture and values are allowed to change. And number four, living in alignment with our values is what leads to a meaningful life.

Your Do Something challenged for this week is to name your values. You have a couple resources on LinkedIn. The show notes for you, including two online quizzes are a little bit quicker. Or the full ultimate values exercise, which you can get for free at about progress.com/values. Before I go, a reminder, I'm on maternity leave and that means I did the work ahead of time to make sure this podcast is still going.

And while that's true, my own marketing of the podcast is taking a big backseat so I can spend more time cuddling my newborn and likely doing lots of laundry. Because of that, I rely on you, the listeners, to ensure that this podcast is being. So if you can share this episode with one friend today, I'd be so grateful and extra bonus points if you leave a rating and review on your podcast app.

Thank you for stepping up in ways I am choosing not to right now. And thank you for listening. Now go and do something with what you learned today.