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If anything is to have value in my life it has to involve some honest truths. I can pretend that things have value to me, but this is not sustainable beyond the short term. When ever I make a decision that has any important impact upon my life and that of those around me, it has to based upon and be congruent with the values that mean most to me. People often describe things as their values, such as family or wealth. They may know  what that means to them but I find it useful to drill those down to their abstract meanings. What is it about  having your family with and behind you that is valuable to you? A feeling of acceptance? A feeling of belonging? And wealth, what does that give you or allow you to do? A sense of independence? A sense of security? So, using this approach I would change the values of family and health to; being accepted, belonging, independence and security.

This same exercise will work out differently for each person, but I want to establish what I mean when I use the term “your values”. Rather than the things in your life, they are the feelings you get from having those things.

In coaching, setting and moving towards desired and defined goals is the basic aim of the exercise. Sounds easy enough. Someone says my goal is to be rich and we just identify some actions required to achieve that. The most lucrative industries are the sex trade, the arms trade, the drugs trade and gambling. So pick your role, pimp, prostitute, gun runner, drug runner or bookie? Maybe that goal of getting rich needs to be qualified. Maybe the feelings you imagine you will get from having enormous wealth can be acheived through some other route? The point is that if your goals do not fit with your values you will either find that you struggle to achieve them or if you do achieve them then they do not provide the satisfaction you initially imagined. So getting your values lined up with your goal is an essential early task in any coaching exercise.

I am always happy to see someone pin down and align their values with their goals, even though that can sometimes be a long and convoluted process. Once it is set, it is amazing how quickly and easily people move forwards. The whole process of coaching relies upon an increase in self awareness and adopting sustainable changes to allow each individual to access and use their true and natural talents. However that sounds to you, it is great to see it happen and that is one of the drives that keeps me practicing and learning as a coach. Thanks for reading this, feel free to leave a comment, Mark.