In the business world, core values are important to shaping
a company’s culture and vision. They will also dictate how the
company will bring that vision to reality. But just having core values — even
if they’re displayed in gold letters on
the office wall — isn’t enough. Clients and customers will quickly notice if
those values aren’t evident in a business’s day-to-to day practices, and it
will affect both their brand perception and their financial success.
The same goes for us as individuals in all aspects of our lives, including in our personal finances.
Whether we realize or not, we all have core values. We may be out of touch with what they are or have a hard time articulating them, but they’re there. Not only knowing, but living out our core values (in this case, our financial values) has many benefits:
A stronger sense of fulfillment in life
Better emotional, mental, and even physical health
Greater confidence in our financial decisions
To live out our core values, we first need to know what they
are.
If it’s been a while (or never) since you’ve put into words what makes you “tick,” what drives you to work hard every day, discipline yourself to save money, and make certain financial choices, the end of the year is a good time to take personal inventory.
If you aren’t sure where to start, a good first step is to look online. You’ll find lists of hundreds of the most common core values to get you thinking, along with plenty of quizzes. Emotional memories are also a good indicator of your core values. Think of the times you were most angered, most excited, most motivated, or most depressed about a money topic, and you’ll find plenty of clues. If you still need help, recruit a friend or Financial Advisor to ask some leading questions or offer you some objective feedback.
Listing your financial values will make them more tangible. If you end up with a large list, find common themes and highlight the central theme of each group (maybe financial freedom, retirement security, or giving). Then rank them by priority (I know — that can be hard!). Realistically, you should have between 5 and 10 top core values to focus on.
Go through your list and rank how well you’re currently living each core value on a scale of 1 to 10. And be honest, because you’ll benefit more from it. Next, identify which values aren’t lining up well with your actions and write down one specific way you can improve that.
Core values guide our actions, often unconsciously. Making them conscious and bringing them into the decision process can make a huge impact on personal satisfaction — and our financial outlook. Make a point to keep your core values within sight going forward, but also to look back at financial decisions you’ve made in the past. Do they align with your newly-identified core values? Are these things you can change, or at least learn from?
Just as it’s important for an entrepreneur drafting a business plan to articulate core company values, following the same process is beneficial to us as individuals. It will allow us to examine the values that are influencing — or need to be brought back into sync with — our financial habits. Only then can we be truly satisfied and successful.
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