'How can articulating core values help us?'

Part 1: A life compass in uncertainty.

Hello, Dear-One! Thank you for being here and part of the Carer Mentor community. A special welcome to all you lovely new subscribers!

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Victoria. I cared for my Dad through to his passing (the hellish dark days with grains of joy), and now I look after Mum (calmer waters with giggles). In addition, I have two businesses that keep my brain cells dancing. You can read more about why I’m publishing Carer Mentor here: Who Started Carer Mentor and Why?’

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A compass with multi-layered points and spherical dimensions. A multi-dimensional concept of our Values and Life compass.

How can articulating core values help us?

There are several reasons I want to share more thoughts on this question today. Here are a few key thoughts:

• The summer holiday life questions I used to have were: How am I spending my time? Is this job meaningful and worthwhile to me and others? Shouldn’t I spend more time with my family?

• Envy can discombobulate a caregiver’s fragile zen when our friends connect for concerts, holidays, and social events and share their happy moments without us. Even if we’re happy for others, we can be sad for ourselves, especially when we must take extra precautions to protect our immunocompromised loved ones from COVID-19. How can we reconcile these conflicting feelings?

• The Post-holiday surge of energy and good intentions. When your boss returns to the office with thousands of ideas of how to ‘improve’ things. Perhaps you’re the manager who’s come back all refreshed and wants to connect more with your team as a team player. Or perhaps you’re trying to let go of more work. Are you delegating more to the team to free up your time or empowering team members to develop their talent? How will you channel your newfound energy?

Everybody needs space to reflect, recharge and recalibrate.

Articulating your core values can give you a better sense of what matters most to you in a very tangible way. When you’re faced with life questions, the envy of others, or the next shiny idea, you can confidently anchor back to your values.

1. What are core values, and how can they be a life compass?

When faced with a choice point, we can use our memories, reference library of experiences, and core values as a compass to help us choose a values-led response. (Resource: Dr Susan David 'Walking your Why' Interview with LeadersIn.)

Values are qualities of purpose-full action. They may evolve and shift, but values are more permanent than goals. They’re guides, not destinations. Often, what feels like the harder choice brings us closer to the person we want to be, more heart than head— we may feel it before we comprehend it.

If we are self-aware about what we value and what holds the most meaning, we can empower ourselves and have greater agency, especially in a crisis. These core values can guide us in situations like points on a compass, keeping us in line with our future selves.

Having a compass when emotions run high, or you feel conflicted can be grounding. It allows us to navigate the unpredictability of being a caregiver and enables emotional agility, especially if we need to keep pivoting.

Why and How I started to articulate my core values

Every historical choice, change and transition provides data points about what and who is important in our lives. Articulating what’s important to you is like dropping a pin on Google Maps. You can reflect on what values have driven you to this point and where you are and recalibrate your compass for the journey ahead.

When I resigned from work in 2017, I leveraged various resources to restate my values. This was the first step in reclaiming my identity, shifting away from having a corporate career as a pivot point and moving caregiving to a priority pole position, front and centre.

Geez, that sounds so glib. If you’ve read ‘A Prelude to Caregiving: Love and Torture,’ you’ll know how torn I was at the start of this caregiving journey in 2015.

I floundered and struggled my way through what followed—a year of ‘medical leave from work’ learning how to be a caregiver, helping my Mum care for my Dad.

It was an emotional rollercoaster of learning that no one prepares you for, especially when your loved one’s diagnosed with vascular dementia and then bladder cancer on top of unstable congestive heart failure. (I’ll unpack some of this in another article)

After maxing out the leave time, I returned to work, and the next spin cycle started.

I kept flip-flopping between taking on a new ‘big’ role and being with my parents as Dad’s health declined further. Finally, I chose, eyes wide open, to resign in 2017. I still didn’t see any of this as an identity crisis. I saw it as just another big transition.

After all, I’d done sixteen relocations across nine countries and been a high-flyer, so I should be able to shift to being the best caregiver ever, shouldn’t I?

All these ‘shoulds’ were part of my work and social conditioning about how I was framing success in life. I registered my first company in June 2017, the month after my resignation. Surely, I could juggle everything? Or was I trying to create a new narrative using the old definition of ‘success’?

My inner voice was not ringing true. There was dissonance in my head, heart and gut.

I was trying to reconcile myself with society’s definition of a carer—not just a carer but an unpaid carer in the UK. All of a sudden, I went from high-flyer leader to invisible carer with limited impact or control over what was happening. I went from a lifestyle in a big city in Europe, to a small town in England.

While caregiving is my highest priority, I couldn’t equate myself to only being a carer. It’s one facet of what makes me who I am, not the whole of me. This is the same for every caregiver. I didn’t know that back in 2017.

I started to reframe my thinking towards a new definition of personal success and articulate what was important to me in the second half of 2017 thanks to Brené Brown and Susan David1's books and resources (‘Braving the Wilderness’ and ‘Emotional Agility’, respectively).

I started to reclaim my sense of self and what makes me me. This was when I wrote the ‘Poem: 'Head-Heart-Gut Aligned'.

I’ve heard caregivers talk about losing their identity and sense of self while caregiving or fearing the loss of who they are. We all feel unseen by others, but it’s easy to also lose sight of ourselves

This is the premise for focusing on ‘Values’ through a caregiver’s lens. Perhaps these resources, insights and ideas can help others reclaim pieces of themselves again.

How do you sustain your sense of self and your own identity?

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2. What do you Value? ‘Checking in’ with Susan David (Episode 10).

Recorded June 1 2020, during Covid. (Transcript)

Susan David¹ translates values into actionable insights. Here is a key excerpt from the podcast episode:

[Values] provide a lens through which you can process tough decisions so that you aren’t winging it. Rather, you are bringing about a greater level of intentionality to your life and your days, which is key to your wellbeing and to having a compass during changing and challenging times.

Values also help inoculate us against choices that are not our own. Without even knowing it, we can start picking up on the behaviors of others, a process called social contagion.

This can mean that over time, as if on autopilot, we can come to want things that we’ve never considered even wanting before: the car your neighbor drives, the clothes you see on Instagram, or the promotion that your colleague got. These things may look good and desirable on the surface, but they might not be truly reflective of you and how you want to live.

Research shows that young women who performed values affirmation exercises (an exercise in which they were asked to write down who they were and what they cared about) were better able to counter cultural prejudices against women in science and to earn high marks in their undergraduate physics courses. The same goes for black and Latino teenagers in school settings that consistently can undervalue them.

Values are not just accouterments that make our lives more pleasant. They are loadstars that keep us on track, even as the world tries to shake us off course.

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The next articles in Carer Mentor will focus on articulating core values and defining our life compass, a first step towards reclaiming our sense of self, and articulating who we are today; our identity.

3. How do we start articulating core values?

Here are a two exercises to get you started

1. When you think of your values, what spontaneous words come to mind? Use Post-its or simply write them down.

   1. For each generic or ‘big’ umbrella word, break it down to underlying 2-3 points.

   2. Define the key words your way, using events e.g. ‘When I chose to do this, it was because…’, ‘this was a defining moment because..’

2. Timeline exercise This is the base exercise I do with all my clients.

   1. For the big, standout moments and major choice-points good and bad, write a few sentences of what drove the choice, and describe it was a part of your life-story.

   2. What was your underlying feeling? Your priority and Why?

4. From words on a page to Qualities of purposeful action

Take these words and experiences, can you see patterns or correlations?

Can you write a paragraph or a few sentences to share with a trusted friend or partner to see if this rings true for them?

Perhaps they can offer additional insights on what they see as important to you?

By journalling how and when are values have driven our decisions, we gain insights on events of dissonance and harmony.

It becomes easier to see when we feel conflicted or when our actions have been aligned to values. We can prime ourselves to make more informed decisions, aligned to our core values. Maybe you can see when and why you had a fundamental shift in your values.

You’ll see I threaded ‘What, Who, Where, and When’ through the article. It’s a useful framework to walk yourself through, to understand your ‘Why’, in the same way that I’ve shared my reasons to recalibrate what’s important to me in 2017.

I was able to realign my brain with my heart-led choice to dedicate more time to supporting my parents. I recalibrated expectations of myself and reclassified ‘should’ as a swear word. It wasn’t easy, but you know when things feel right, and click into place. That’s when you feel your actions are in-synch with your values.

In Part 2 I’ll share more insights from experts and other authors to give you more tips and thoughts on how to articulate your values.

Thank you for being part of this wonderful community. I appreciate you.

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P.S: My ‘Small Pause-sans définition’ was a lovely recharge, I managed to get more sleep and relax. There were a hoards of people, but some lovely restaurant and bar staff accommodated my request for distanced seating. Friends with/who’ve had COVID = 6 now. Hospitals closed to visitors due to COVID = 3 I know of. (July 4 BBC news article)

I’m recalibrating my time and cadence of publishing, because I love reading, commenting just as much as writing. Plus, my time will be even tighter over the next months. All to say, you’ll receive a newsletter in your inbox only on Wednesdays now.

The One Resource-Two Insights-Three tips/Ideas will be updated and web-published every weekend.

More articles will be added to the Caregivers Library, focusing on the Resonance and Mentoring sections.

Please share the URL in the comments if you’d like to recommend an article or resource. Thanks!

1. Dr. Susan David's TedTalk: 'The Gift and Power of Emotional Agility.' The One Video and Book that I consistently recommend to everyone.