You've probably done some version of the list-your-values exercise. Maybe in therapy, a leadership offsite, or a particularly ambitious journaling session. You write down what matters to you, feel briefly clarified, and move on.
This is that exercise with one extra step that changes everything. Instead of just listing, you rank choice your way through the list. Every value goes head to head against every other value until a real hierarchy emerges. My dating coach introduced it to me, which felt like an odd place to have a professional breakthrough, but here we are.
(insert head to head gif)
How it works
Start by listing your top values. Don't overthink it, write down whatever comes up. Five to Ten is a good range.
Then run them head to head.
Take the first value on your list and ask: if I had to choose one over the other, which would I pick?
Family or Career?
Family or Health?
Family or Personal Growth?
Work your way through every other value on the list. Every time you pick a value, give it a checkmark. Then do the same with your second value, your third, and so on, each one compared against everything else.
When you're done, tally the checkmarks and order the one with the most checks first and so on ending with the one with the lowest checks.
The real question
Then ask yourself: do your actions align with your value hierarchy?
Mine did not. I said family was my top priority. I also spent three weeks out of every month traveling away from the people I consider family. Travel got zero votes.
A year later I redid the exercise and didn't even list travel. Not because I stopped loving it, but because what I actually value isn't travel itself. It's the perspective shift. Meeting new people. Learning. Those are the values. Travel is just one delivery mechanism, and honestly I can access most of that without a flight.
Money was another one that surprised me. It wasn't on my list at all, and right now, bootstrapping a company, how I think about money and time has completely changed.
I'd encourage you to try this at least once, and then again around any big transition or once a year just to check in.
The question I keep coming back to: if someone were observing your life from the outside, what would they say your priorities are? Is that the answer you want?
Stay unscripted my loves.
🖤 - EmmyLu