BEGINNING THE JOURNEY TO VALUE BASED LIVING

**This post is all about the awareness and mindset behind getting on a path to a more intentionally designed life and therefore more fortitude.**

BEGINNING THE JOURNEY TO VALUE BASED LIVING

Want to build a life that is centered fully on your values? We are diving into the first steps of that today. This post is all about the awareness and mindset behind getting on a path to a more intentionally designed life, and therefore more fortitude. If that sounds valuable to you, let’s dive in!

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

How many people got asked this question THOUSANDS, let’s be real, probably more like tens of thousands, of times throughout the course of their childhood and young adulthood? I’m guessing just about every human being laying eyes on this page, ha!

How many of you had an answer that stayed true from the first time you were asked this to the last? This time I’m guessing very few of us. (I know there are some cases like this, but they’re rare.)

Isn’t it interesting that this is the most common question we ask kids as they are developing? What kind of thought process does this question start to form in young, growing minds? What type of lifestyle does this question guide us toward building?

As I pondered the three mindset shifting questions above (after some prodding from mentors of mine, I’m not that introspective without help 😊) I realized that, for me, a life centered on a profession vs a life centered on values is what I had ended up with by focusing on and trying to answer the “what do you want to do?” question.

Let’s talk about lives centered on professions, jobs, business, etc. first.

Just to be clear, I’m NOT knocking this kind of life. If your profession fills you with purpose, you get out of bed most mornings jonesing to dive into whatever it is you do for work, you always get paid a wage that eliminates financial stress, AND you are able to keep your values in the vertical alignment that you believe is right, then you are an extremely blessed individual. But let’s be frank here, that isn’t most people.

This exercise was explained to me several years ago and I knew I needed to make some changes in my life after I did it. First, write down the top 3 broad priorities in your life. For me this list was:

My relationship with God
Family
Purpose/Impact or Work (aka usually money making activities)

Now, imagine a pie chart that covers 24 hours of time. We obviously need time for basic things like eating, bathroom breaks, and sleeping, but outside of that what does your pie chart look like? Draw it out! It’s fun! At the time I was doing the exercise I had just come off the national tour of Elf the Musical and was working in a restaurant while auditioning to find my next musical theatre gig, which meant my pie chart looked like this…

SARAH’S DAY

When I saw this visual representation that my 1, 2, 3 had become my 3, 2, 1, I made every excuse in the book to myself for why living a life out of line with my values was okay for me.

“But I LOVE performing.”

“…I’m OOOONLY 28.”

“My life isn’t always this way, usually I’m working a performing gig!” (the pie chart during a gig didn’t look that much different, maybe a slightly bigger God slice because I had more free time, but no increase in the family slice or real decrease in the money-making slice if I was honest with myself)

I get that realistically the pie chart of my day will never consistently be 85% of time in silence with God due to my chosen path, but the point is I want to give Him my best time, not my leftover time.

Maybe your pie chart aligns perfectly with your priorities and if it does, I applaud you because that is not an easy feat, but if it doesn’t, have you thought about how you can re-design it? And by re-design it I don’t mean a life where you don’t have to work hard or where everything is hunky-dory and comfortable all the time. I mean an intentionally designed life filled with purpose and impact that was customized by YOU, not by your boss or your business.

This brings us to the kind of life I mentioned earlier, one centered on values.

What that looks like varies for everybody of course, but we are all human and more alike than different in my experience. That being said, my values do not have to be your values, so if your priorities are distant from mine, it matters not, the concept still applies.

So, what kind of question gets us into a thought process of creating a life constructed by what matters most to us? What I was asked is, “How do you want to live?”

Imagine if we were asked this as kids over and over and over and over and over and over. What would we be thinking about? How would our little developing minds be forming the picture of our lives? I imagine we’d be creating a more well-rounded idea of what we want our lives to look like vs simply what we want to “do”.

Where do we want to live? What kind of home do we live in? Are we able to travel? WHERE do we travel? How often are we able to spend time with family and friends? What charities do we give to? What kinds of causes are we able to invest time into? Do we have kids? How do we want to educate those kids? How much time do we get with those kids? Can we afford to adopt if we want to? The list of questions relating to how we want to tailor our lives goes on and on!

I’m going to say something counter cultural here…

I believe that if we find something that will give us the LIFE that we want we should dive into it whether we are “passionate” about it or not. The more we do something, the more proficient we become, which leads to more consistent results, and therefore passion becomes a byproduct.

Also, the pursuit of ANYTHING great has its ups and downs so we might as well choose something that guarantees us getting all the way to the financial flexibility, prosperous relationships, control of our time, widespread impact, …insert desired goal here… that we ultimately desire. (Caveat, the guarantee is only a guarantee when we consistently invest in the work required, and don’t quit until we get the outcome we want, whether it’s in our preferred timeline or not.)

Speaking of financial flexibility…

In my experience, the main thing that prevents us from being able to live our lives exactly how we’d desire is finances. We can probably all agree that while money doesn’t make us happy, it provides peace of mind and choices. It is a tool that allows us to live out our values and impact at the highest level possible. When I realized this, it dawned on me that if I could solve the pesky money-making issue, not only would I free up SO much bandwidth for number 1 and number 2 on my pie chart, but my number 3 could be designed to include only those things I am purposed to work on.

Transforming one’s finances and changing how we think about making money is much easier said than done. I had no idea where to begin, but this shift in my mindset opened my eyes to the idea of learning how I could make money more efficiently than simply trading my time for it. Once I witnessed that kind of life, I knew it would take a ton of work to create, but that it was, without a doubt, the type of life I wanted.

That brings me to my two key points:

The way that we think determines the outcomes we get in our lives
Once you have crystallized the picture in your mind of how you want to live, find people who live that way! Ask them how they did it and if they’ll guide you in creating the same results in your own life.

Final thoughts: Finding guidance and a vehicle to get you to the life that you want doesn’t mean you have it made. That part is like joining the gym…no guarantee that you’ll get fit. You must consistently implement the new habits and patterns you’re being guided to create. Tony Robbins always says, if we want more in our lives we must become more. Guidance can provide you with resources to help and great examples of people who are further down the path of becoming more, but YOU must do the work for YOU. The confidence developed through the everyday choice to keep the promises you make to yourself is how self-image and internal fortitude get built.

I have not yet achieved the exact pie chart of my life that I desire, but I am certainly much closer than I used to be. More importantly, I KNOW I’m on a path towards it thanks to changing my thought patterns and seeking out guidance, and that confident knowledge makes the journey SO much more fun.

I’m in your corner!

The internet is a crazy place. If you feel like you don’t know where to begin when it comes to changing your mindset and searching for legitimate guidance, ask me. I am connected with many resources and I value sharing them with those who are hungry, seeking, and serious about change!

Disclaimer, the resources aren’t magic bullets, they are connections that then require massive action in order to get results. For now, here are a few links to books that have been instrumental in the forming of my personal fortitude: