After my recent post, ‘Sacrificing My Family At the Altar of My Business,’ I had folks reach out for a few different reasons, one of which was to ask questions about the values and priorities piece in there. Specifically:

• How can I differentiate between the two?
• How can I put them into practice?

Before we get to that, I do want to highlight the importance of establishing your values and priorities. After all, this is the first step in my process of working with clients in my coaching practice. Put simply, we start here because they offer a strong anchor that you can tie actions around to eventually create habits that turn into sustainable behaviors.

• Anchor -> Action -> Habit -> Behavior

When we guide ourselves to explore what we each really want and what really matters, it takes time, so be patient.

In terms of the difference between the two, here is the way I think about it:

Values can best be described as ‘basic and fundamental beliefs that guide or motivate attitudes or actions.’

Priorities can best be described as ‘where our time is spent.’

In other words, values are our own subjective view on what matters to us while priorities are the objective measure of where time is invested.

• Values = our words
• Priorities = our actions

All that said, here are a series of questions meant to put yourself in the right frame of mind to tease out the truth:

1. What do you hold up as the highest values and priorities in your life?
2. What are your stress levels? What brings the most stress? How do you manage it?
3. What do you love talking about to others?
4. Where do you spend most of your time?
5. Where do you spend most of your energy?
6. What brings you the most joy?
7. Do you feel equipped with the resources and support you need to achieve your goals?
8. What habits do you think are vital to moving you towards your goals?
9. What are you doing to make progress toward your goals today?
10. What does success look like to you?
11. If you achieve your goal, but your priorities fall to the wayside, is that still seen as a success?
12. In what areas, actions, and activities within your life do you have the most consistency, rhythm, and routine? This can be as simple as a morning routine, routes you take as you drive, or paths you walk in your neighborhood.
13. If you meet your goal in 3 months, what happens next?
14. What is the last goal you achieved that you are most proud of? Why? How long did it take?

It’s important to note that although you’ll use your answers to inform your actions, you don’t use it in such a way that is akin to “holding it over your head” to make yourself feel guilty for taking an action not in line with your V/P. For instance, if you listed ‘Be a healthy role model for my daughter’ as a priority and then you noticed that you had pizza and beer the last five nights, you wouldn’t say “what happened to being a role model?” I know that seems like an extreme example, but the sentiment rings true. You use information to guide your decisions and conversations in a way that can move you forward.

One final thing to keep in mind:

This is a potentially uncomfortable exercise to go through. For instance, imagine that you list ‘family’ as value number one. While you may also think that ‘family’ is also priority number one, upon actual investigation you may discover that after a 10-hour work day, dinner out with friends, and a ninety-minute commute, family is actually not that high on the priority list. Again, there is no judgement, you are just painting as clear a picture of yourself as possible.

Armed with this information, you can begin to unpack, understand, and then change decisions you’ve made that are in misalignment with your V/P. In the meantime, why don’t you take the time to answer the above questions? Send your replies to me: josh@coachingforglory.com