🌟 YOUR CAREER ICE-BERG ~ What is beneath the Surface of Who You Are?
Your values are one of the life anchors that you should be clear about. They are one of the elements that make up who you are. They are intangible, hidden from other people, sometimes even yourself, but they’re a lense that guides your actions, choices, reactions and decisions. If you use the visual of an iceberg, they are what is underneath the surface, which determines a huge percentage of who you are, how you behave and choices you make in your life and career.
🌟 VALUES IN CAREER PLANNING – Self-Coaching Guide 1 under the Know Yourself Step 1 in Career Planning
đź’ Sometimes to make a decision or take action we have a conscious criteria that we can tick off. However, on a daily basis we make decisions about several small and big things based on a unconscious set of criteria that we tick off. Rarely do we whip out a list of principles or standards we have chosen to live by, but it’s always there in the background as our compass. Unless it’s a tough decision or a situation that requires us to weigh various options.
🎯 DEFINING VALUES & THEIR IMPORTANCE in Career Planning
Values are defined as deeply held beliefs that have the ability to influence our behaviour and our choices. As you expand your self-knowledge to help you with your career planning, its not about having a list, but what you need to be clear for yourself is: what are my core DEEPLY HELD BELIEFS, which guide me? To test this, for each value or deeply held belief,
– write an explanation that helps define it
– write down its source and what continues to feed it in your life
– give an example of it in practice (1) in a life role; (2) in terms of a job or workplace.
Nina Grunfeld has also defined values as “an internal compass that helps us make decisions and make choices to go in one way or another is our personal value system.”
đź”…Values are a person’s principles or standards of behaviour. They are your judgement of what’s important in your life, which determine behaviour.
đź”…Values are important for:
– decision making,
– making choices,
– giving you a sense of identity,
– they govern the things you do,
– they determine if you are happy/in harmony or unhappy/in tension depending on whether you in alignment or not.
🎯 Self-coaching guidance: how to identify your values and live them –
1. Imagine your best day or what annoys you the most and ask “what’s important about that” several times until you identify the value there. E.g. honesty and respect.
2. Think about your life experiences that have shaped you and identify any principles that you hold dear and live by. E.g. compassion and hard work.
3. Also reflect on qualities you admire in others. These may resonate with your own principles and standards you would like to live by. E.g. valuing family and people.
4. Once you have identified your values, it’s very important for you to write down what you mean by that value. Define it. In a meaningful way to you and you can clearly see how it translates to action (Jeni Purdie).
E.g. ” My value of honesty means that I never avoid telling myself the truth even when it is painful to admit.”
5. Once you have your list, assess where your values are aligned in all the areas of your life/goals (personal and professional) and where they are not in harmony.
Results – act on areas where there is a disconnect or lack of harmony.
đź’ remember to use the GROW self-coaching model for this task. Also research on the Internet for more resources and do ask for help if you need it.
RESOURCE for SELF-ASSESSMENT and  REFERENCE MATERIALS
- SELF ASSESSMENT TOOLS – resource materials 1 and 2 in PDF
https://career.berkeley.edu/Plan/Values
http://www.rop.santacruz.k12.ca.us/resources/career_planning/step1tool1.pdf
- SELF ASSESSMENT TOOL – resource material 3 to be done ONLINE
“The Life Values Inventory (LVI)  is a questionnaire-style assessment which measures how strongly you endorse certain pre-determined values such as Achievement, Belonging, Financial Prosperity and Spirituality.  The assessment also measures where these values find their strongest expression and areas in your life where they are expressed least.Â
The LVI  will increase your awareness of who you are. It will also provide suggestions on how your values interface with your personal and professional life, and whether or not the activities and experiences you engage in are in line with your highly prioritized values.  You can use the results to gather additional information about career options and activities that naturally align with your values. The assessment will also cover practical steps you can take if you want to increase the presence of a value in your life or seek a suitable place to express that value.Â
The LVI is a free online assessment.  No appointment with a counselor is necessary, and you can immediately receive and review the results as you see fit.  Visit www.lifevaluesinventory.org to take the assessment and create a profile.  You can take the assessment as many times as you’d like and record how your values change over time.” – https://career.virginia.edu/interests [SOURCE]
READING MATERIALS – resource materials 4 to 8
For more information, please refer also to the articles that provide detailed information about work and life values
- https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_85.htm
- https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/Work-Values-Check-List
- https://www.thebalancecareers.com/identifying-your-work-values-526174
- https://idreamcareer.com/blog/importance-of-personal-values-in-career-decisions
- https://leaderchat.org/2019/03/26/4-questions-to-help-you-clarify-your-core-values/
VIDEOS for Illustration: resource materials 9 and 10
5 minutes Video – this is a really good teaching video. Introduction from website – Everyone has different preferences when it comes to their work life. In this lesson, we’ll explore work values, including what they are, some common work values, work values assessments, and how they can influence your career choices.
2 minutes Video – Introduction from website – Donna talks about being mission-driven and the importance of pursuing work that aligns with her values. She talks about developing tech for social impact and how she searched for an opportunity to do this, which is aligned to her values.
A reminder of the Career Planning process is in the diagram below –
Happy assessment and getting deeper self-knowledge!
Ennie Chipembere
Career Coach🔥
27 March 2019
Ennie Career Coach 
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