What are your values?
Hello 2017! I can't believe its been 3 months since my last blog post. Time sure does fly by and I am ready to give you my first blog of the new year. I have to say, I prefer even numbers but I am so happy 2016 is behind me. Although 2017 is an odd number I am looking forward to what it has to bring and so far it has not disappointed! In less than two months I have traveled to 2 new cities (Dallas TX, Alexandria VA), celebrated my oldest niecest 14th birthday, skied Loon mountain and began dating. If this is any indication of what's to come I am looking forward to the rest of the year!
So that is a VERY quick update on me - now onto the blog...
For a year and a half I have been a Jess Lively groupie! I found her podcast through a magazine article and after listening to just one episode I was hooked! Her positive outlook on life and relationships was contagious and exactly what I needed to get through 2016.
Jess Lively is dedicated to helping people live from their intuition and values based intentions. At first, I had no idea what she meant by "intuition" and "values based intentions" but I am now incorporating both into each and everyday. After listening to countless episodes (currently 198 to be exact!) I began to get a sense for what these phrases meant and could resonate with her stories/topics. I decided to take it a step further and enrolled in her Fall 2016 Life With Intention Online (LWIO) class. This was a 4 week, online class with Jess and women from all of the world that had one thing in common ... "looking to transform our approach to life". I realize that most of you reading this right now are probably thinking "Abby is crazy" or "has she gone off the deep end" but this coarse taught me SO much about myself that I want to share it with you in hopes that it can give you a new perspective as you start 2017.
Each week during class, Jess gave us new content to review and homework to complete. Now I am not going to giveaway all her secrets but the most important takeaway was to focus my energy on living every aspect of my life with values based intentions. Although you may think this seems easy, it takes ALOT of work to identify what these values are and then deliberately act on them to ensure they are incorporated into each day. During the four week coarse I learned how to "peacefully accept reality and live in the present moment" (aka intuition) and identified the "things that are most important to me which bring fulfillment, joy, peace and are enduring (aka values). We started first by writing down our values for 4 aspects of our life; 1) possession 2) personal habit 3) relationship 4) career. These values were select words or phrases that captured what was most important to me. To give you an example, my values were:
Possession: Calm. Beautiful. Joy. Serenity.
Personal Habit: Healthy. Simple.
Relationship: Positive. Loyal. Compassionate. Love.
Career: Flexibility. Creative. Balance. Financial Independence.
Although it has been a few months since LWIO these values still hold true for me today. As my life continues to evolve they may change but for now they resonate with me. Once my values were selected, I created a simple sentence that included them to produce my "values based intentions". And here they are:
Possession: Create a calm and beautiful environment that exudes joy and serenity.
Personal Habit: Explore a healthy and simple life each day.
Relationship: Surround myself with positive, loyal and compassionate individuals who appreciate love.
Career: Pursue a career that gives me the flexibility to be creative, financially independent and live a life of balance.
These values based intentions are my current mantras for 2017 and I can tell you that they are making a positive impact in my life. It is easy to get distracted in today's world but these intentions have forced me to take a step back and focus on what matters to me most. And when you do this for yourself, you become happier and as a result everything around you (work, relationships, etc.) does as well. This result is a by product of the "Law of a Attraction" which is a topic for another day!
Now it's your turn. What are your values for each of the four aspects of your life?
It's only appropriate to end this blog post like Jess Lively ends each podcast ... "May something wonderful happen to you today"!
