Core Values

It's easy to get caught up in moving through your life without necessarily reflecting on what you are trying to achieve, or why. For many of us it is - Action -> Reaction. Stimulus -> Response. When life becomes overwhelming, it is too easy to focus on getting through the day. Just focusing on surviving. This is a trap that stops us from becoming the person we want to be. From achieving our goals in life.

I was fortunate enough to have an early introduction to the importance of values during my training as an expedition guide with Outward Bound Australia. By holding our actions up to the values that are important to us, we can reflect on how well they are aligned. This is crucial to allowing you to better understand if you are on the right path. Or, alternatively, if your actions are consistently out of alignment with your stated values, you can then reflect on the reasons behind that gap.

Many of Outward Bound Australia's core values at the time are still values I hold closely to. The key values I took from OBA were:

- Compassion
- Resilience 
- Development of human potential
- Service
- Integrity (although this is a bit on the nose these days as a bit of a catchall when it's provided without the reason of why it's important)

A couple of other core values that I believe in are:

- Equity
- Environmental conservation/sustainability
- Lifelong learning

These values have been a guiding light throughout my life. That said, it certainly doesn't mean that living by core values makes it easy to navigate life in a world that doesn't share these values to the same extent. 
It has also meant years and years (and years) searching for a role/career that aligned with as many of these values as possible. And while no job I have had is a perfect match, the role I'm currently in (and which I developed from the ground up) is as close as I've managed to get. 

What are your core values? When you look at them written down, what do they say to you about who you are, and the impact you want to have on the world?