The start of a new year is often a time to pause, reflect, and think about the future. Many of us set New Year’s resolutions or make promises to change a certain behavior that are usually short lived. This year, my family is going through a practice of defining our values to help shape our decisions, focus, and energy for the new year. I hope you’ll join us in this activity!
Defining Values
Our goal will be to determine two or three values that will be the priority for the year. I know it will be a challenge to get to that number, but I’m excited for the ways it can center our attention. Researcher and storyteller Brene Brown provides a values exercise as a place to start. She explains that most people will start by circling 10-15 values, but she encourages us to review and narrow our list.
These questions might help you get to your final values:
- What do I hold most important?
- When I have to make a difficult decision, what guides me?
- Where do I spend (or want to spend) most of my energy and attention?
My husband and I are going to work through this list on our own and then come together to discuss. We have young children (ages four and seven) so we will ask them questions to understand what is on their hearts, help them determine their values, and talk about how those fit in with the family values. I think you can adapt this exercise based on the age of your children.
We will ask questions such as:
- How do you hope our family will spend time this year?
- What makes you most excited right now?
- Is there anything you want to learn or improve this year?
- When do you feel the most at ease?
Reflecting On Values
Determining values is only step one; even more important is reflecting on how they influence behavior so that we may truly live into our values. This is where we hold tight to what we believe and line up our actions, decisions, and goals to be congruent with our values.
Brown suggests asking questions such as:
- What are one or two behaviors that support your values?
- What are one or two slippery behaviors that are outside your values?
- What’s an example of a time when you were fully living into this value?
Shaping The Year
After we determine how to intentionally live into our values, it’s time to consider how they affect our goals for the year. Through the lens of our values, we can decide how we will spend our money, time, and effort.
The values we have prioritized may dictate how we engage in extracurricular activities, spend our weekends and vacations, talk to one another, divide household chores, share the mental load, and more. We can think about our spending habits, healthcare choices, and daily routines based on our values.
For example, if a value for the family is health, we might ask questions like:
- To help ensure physical health, how do we create space for each person to move their body in a healthy way? How do we balance that with other responsibilities as a family?
- How do we ensure the mental health of each family member? Is this the time to invest in couple’s counseling or play therapy?
- What does this mean for how our family eats? Do we need to refocus our family budget so we can visit the farmers’ market each week to incorporate fresh vegetables and fruits?
- Where will we need to say no so that our health is truly a priority?
Or, if a prioritized value is connection, we could ask questions like:
- What does this mean for how I approach parenting?
- How does this play out in the way my husband and I seek connection?
- How do we ensure we create time and space for connection as a family?
- Does this change the way we manage money?
- Where will we need to say no so that we can focus on connection?
How will you turn your values into verbs this year? Let’s hold each other accountable to progress — not perfection — in 2024. Happy New Year!
