DISCOVER YOUR CORE VALUES.... LIVE YOUR HIGHER PURPOSE

By Guest Author :
​Cherie Hawkins

Let’s Cut To The Core
Personally I suffer from bright light syndrome but the one thing that keeps me grounded are my core values. They’re my foundation and I know when things are off course it’s because I’m not listening to them or to my intuition (to be in-tune).

It’s those times where I struggle the most and ask myself endless questions:

... why am I feeling like this
... why is this person getting to me so much Why is he/she being such a dick
... why am I so sensitive blah blah blah

You know the ones.
I remember meeting my now husband (he from London, me from South Auckland) and we were very different human beings with different human doing tendencies but I remember thinking the more serious things got the one thing we had in common that remains to this day was our same core values.

How Did Those Core Values Reveal Themselves?

I saw how much he loved and adored his mum. He saw how much I protected and cherished my kiwi brothers and sisters (and yes of course the random Aussie and Yappie) at our home away from home. He cooked and nurtured his best mate from “Up North” of England of Indian descent who loved nothing better than his Sunday roasts.

He heard me talk to my Nana from a phone box in Hastings (the UK one) and only after I hung up did he say she sounded like Dame Edna Everage. Later on he met her (Nana not the Dame) and like the rest of us loved her quick wit and stoicism.

You see it was those core values that has kept us grounded some 20 odd years later. It’s not been without its challenges and there have been many times where we’ve had to push the reset button and pick ourselves up to start again but that’s how we’re all feeling right now as we navigate this new normal.

Time To Push The Reset Button

Right now our core values are something we need to strengthen because it’s been a bit of a wild ride right.

It’s natural to feel a range of emotions after such unbelievable events so what can we do to steady those ups and downs and twists and turns?

We don’t know what this new normal is even but word from the street is the majority of us want things to be better, easier, less stressful, less chaotic and more of the connectivity, more care, more togetherness and the list continues...

Opportunity Knocks

For employers it can be an opportunistic time to get to know their employees on a much deeper level; what their TRUE core values are and what direction do they wish to go in. Let’s face it for many of us we play lip service with the boss when really we want to:

•   Go part-time
•   Job share
•   Work from home more
•   Take every Friday off
•   Take every Monday off
•   Study something totally different than our career path
•   Go on a sabbatical to anywhere else than where we are right now.
•   Take a trip or take time out
•   .... (fill in the blank)

How cool would it be if you shared your own unique purpose that sits at the core of who you truly are? Telling stories about how you feel does mean you’re vulnerable whether you’re the boss or not, but isn’t it a damn sight better than “faking it”?

Being humble and vulnerable are powerful core values. We can see everyday how badly it goes for leaders home and away who don’t behave with humility or vulnerability as part of their values system.

Ikigai | Time To Serve A Greater Purpose
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Have you heard of the Japanese term Ikigai? Iki - means life and gai - means value or worth, and in simple terms it’s what gets you up in the morning (not in the alarm clock sort of way or the beeping dog needs to go to the loo again way either).

It’s all about finding your purpose, your passion, and it manifests into “the value of life or the happiness of life”.

I think Ikigai for me and for most at this time is to focus on not just what I/we want/need but also what the world as a whole wants/needs.
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Imagine what a positive impact on our family, community, city, region, country and around the world if we understood and nurtured the value of life over all else? Not just our life either; the life of the planet, our environment, the greater good.

Cause and Effect

There is and always will be “cause and effect”. What happens at home impacts what happens at work and vice versa. What happens there then impacts our community.
Our emotionally intelligent core values as a community can allow us to take care of ourselves as well as others which means our city or region not only has a chance to survive but thrive. If those set of core values are carried into our nation as a whole that influences others around the world. 

What Would Alice Do?

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where—” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

I love Alice but let’s not be the Alice in this quote. Let’s put down that funny tonic, stop talking to the cat and draw up a set of emotionally intelligent new rules. When we cut to the core we don’t want to see any rotten bits - we want to see new growth so the world around us heals and flourishes. 

Thank you Cherie for sharing your insightful words to inspire and encourage others to delve deeper into their core values, to find their purpose and to passionately and whole-heartedly follow it.