If you ask yourself whether you are living a life aligned with your deepest purpose, what would you answer? If you’re working a job you’re not that keen on and you’ve stopped doing all the hobbies that make you feel alive, your answer may be, “hell no!” But if you love your job or are in love with being a stay-at-home mum, your answer may be a resounding “yes!”

Wherever you are on this scale of living your life aligned with your purpose, the great news is that you can always make new choices right now that align more with how you want to live your life.

You could be in a job you loathe, be struggling with money, have perpetual relationship issues and not many friends to turn to, but right now, you can make a new choice that completely changes the trajectory of your life.

It’s all about looking at life a little differently and seeing the bigger picture; it’s about taking a step back and getting a birds-eye view of your life as it is currently.

Understanding the bigger picture

We don’t want to be morbid here but we’d like to bring your attention to the end of your life. Before you dismiss us, hear us out! The reason why we want to bring attention to the end of your life is so you can look at how you are living your life now and the choices you are currently making.

At the end of your life, how do you want to be remembered? How do you want to be remembered as a mother? How do you want people to say they felt when they were in your company? What do you want your kids to say and feel about you?

Reflecting on your life in this way can be such a powerful motivator for moving forward in the direction you want to go.

At the end of your life, you won’t be fondly remembering all the emails you got back to, or the money you made. You won’t look back fondly at how you criticised and blamed and complained or about the arguments you won. You will look back at how you played the cards you were dealt, how you overcame your struggles, and the relationships you built. You’ll look back on your adventures, the laughter, and the ways in which you said “yes” to life. You’ll look back at the way you loved and how others loved you. You’ll look back on what brought you the most joy.

Life is unpredictable. Who knows how long we have left on this planet? When we look at the bigger picture like this, life isn’t about being perfect or being right. It’s about picking ourselves up when we fall down, it’s about moving forward towards what we believe in, and it’s about giving and receiving love. It’s about family, community, forgiveness, kindness, taking risks and fully living life. It’s about taking care of yourself and those around you. And, guess what? These are all choices you can make right now!

To live a life aligned with your deepest purpose, you need to know who you are. And we’re not talking about labels such as mother, sister or what you do for a living. We are talking about what lights you up and makes you feel alive. We are talking about what matters the most to you.

In other words, what are your values?

How do I identify my values?

Your values represent the principles you live by. When you really tune in to what is most important to you, your path begins to become clearer and it becomes easier to make more aligned choices. Your values tell you whether you’re on track!

Identifying your values is simple. And it’s a really fun and interesting process of understanding your inner world. We have a fun exercise for you. Out of the below value words, pick your top ten values that align with the core of your being.

Accountability

Accomplishment

Achievement

Adventure

Acceptance

Ambition

Assertiveness

Balance

Beauty

Belonging

Brilliance

Boldness

Calmness

Carefulness

Challenge

Cheerfulness

Clarity

Commitment

Community

Compassion

Competitiveness

Confidence

Consistency

Contentment

Connection

Contribution

Collaboration

Cooperation

Correctness

Courtesy

Courage

Creativity

Curiosity

Daring

Decisiveness

Dependability

Determination

Devotion

Discipline

Discretion

Diversity

Dreamer

Dynamism

Economy

Effectiveness

Efficiency

Elegance

Empathy

Enjoyment

Enthusiasm

Equality

Excellence

Excitement

Expertise

Exploration

Expressiveness

Fairness

Faith

Family

Fearlessness

Fierce

Fitness

Flexibility

Focus

Forgiveness

Freedom

Fun

Generosity

Goodness

Grace

Gratitude

Growth

Happiness

Hard Work

Harmony

Health

Helping Society

Holiness

Honesty

Honour

Humility

Humour

Independence

Ingenuity

Inner Harmony

Intimacy

Inquisitiveness

Insightfulness

Intelligence

Intuition

Joy

Justice

Kindness

Knowledge

Leadership

Legacy

Love

Loyalty

Making a difference

Mastery

Maturity

Mindfulness

Openness

Originality

Patience

Passion

Perfection

Persistency

Playfulness

Positivity

Practicality

Professionalism

Purpose

Quality

Reliability

Relaxation

Resourcefulness

Resilience

Respect

Risk

Security

Self-actualization

Self-control

Selflessness

Self-reliance

Sensitivity

Serenity

Service

Sexuality

Silliness

Simplicity

Spirituality

Spontaneity

Stability

Strength

Structure

Success

Support

Talent

Teamwork

Thankfulness

Thoughtfulness

Time

Tolerance

Traditionalism

Trust

Truth-seeking

Understanding

Uniqueness

Unity

Vision

Vitality

Winning
Wonder

Of course, feel free to add your own!

Now, this is where it gets harder. From those top ten, pick your top three core values.

Now, this is where it gets really tough. Out of those three values, what is your number one value?

Now write that word down. This is your core value!

This value can help you make any decisions related to your life, relationships, work and family. Everything you do and say needs to align with this value.

Now look again at your top three values. Do they make you feel alive? How do these chosen values reflect the life you live now?

If these values don’t make you feel a sense of joy and aliveness, then replace them with ones that do.

These values help you live a life by choice, not by default.

Now, what is one action step that you can take today that can align with your core values?

Final thoughts

You are the creator of your life and your values are the design for your life. Keep your values somewhere where you can see them so you can tune into them every day. And use them to help you with every decision you make.

Each time you have to make a decision, ask yourself, is this aligned with your core values?

Am I living a life aligned with my deepest purpose?

How do you even know what that is? Unii is interested.