Value Sort

 The first activity that CS asked me to do was a value sort.  Here are her instructions from before our first meeting.

Values Sort:

Cut out the boxes of values and identify the top ten values for you in your life right now – both related to your personal life and your work life. These top ten should be what you want your life to be like, not necessarily what it is right now. You can do this exercise by eliminating those that aren’t important to you and then prioritizing the most important to you. Try to get as close to 10 values as you can. If you have time, place the 10 in priority order.

 Along with her email came a word document with just over a 125 values formatted in boxes.  I cut them all out, put them in a little gift bag and started sorting while we were driving up to NH for a family camping trip.

It was daunting, at first, to imagine getting down to only ten values from all of them in the bag.  For the first pass I read them all and threw out anything that I just KNEW wouldn't make the top 10.  That got rid of about 34 or so:   

travel to see world, being visionary, adventure, detachment (work at work), great leisure life, democracy, safety/protection, work under pressure, privacy, purity, competition, fast-paced work, sports, working alone, reaching the top, religion group, arts, reverence for life, humility, sophistication, financial gain, financial independence, power and authority, owning a house, beauty, physical challenge, traveling, public service, becoming an entrepreneur, wealth, following my bliss, good nutrition, interesting retirement, fame.

Some of the first-pass rejects are things that I flat out don't value, like "work under pressure", while others are things that I just know I can't rank in the top ten at this point in my life, like "traveling". 

When we returned from the camping trip I took the remaining hundred or so values, spread them out on my bed and picked out the ones that really jumped out at me.  After that exercise I was left holding only 31 values - still three times more than I was supposed to have!

On the day that CS and I were meeting to discuss them I had planned to go from 31 down to 10 during Lily and Quinn's naptime.  And of course they both decided not to do a whole lot of sleeping that day - it's just always the way.  So, I decided to make the value sort into a little art project.  I spread the remaining values out on the table and began to notice that they fell quite nicely into categories.  I started doing what I do best - organizing and sorting.  Pretty soon I had managed to pull out 10 main values, some with supporting sub-values.  I made sure that I was happy with the "big" value in each category and then pulled out construction paper and some mounting tabs.  After a little while Lily and I had made these:

Although I did the sorting weeks ago it wasn't until last night that I had a chance to sit down and do the ranking.  CS and I had already talked through the values and why I chose them, so ranking them was not that difficult.  Here's the final order and a little bit on why these ten values called out to me.

1. Growth [New Training & Learning, Change & Variety, personal Development]
2. Serenity [Order (tranquility, stability), Living in the Present, Simplicity, Just Having Fun]
3. Balance Work and Life [Time Flexibility]
4. Being a Close Family [Parenting with Wisdom and Love]
5. Meaningful Work [Quality of what I take part in, Invovlement]
6. Self Esteem [Decisiveness, Using my Abilities, Living Courageously]
7. Helping Other People [Influencing Others, Making a Difference, Community]
8. Economic Security
9. Working with a Team [Being with Open and Honest People]
10. Recognition [Reputation, Achievement, Intellectual Status]