Welcome to Running to Myself. I’m Trisha Stanton. Life and mindset coach, running coach and host of Running to Myself.
16 years ago I ran my first marathon. The process of training for that first race changed my life. This podcast is my opportunity to share some of the lessons I have learned through the many ups and downs of life during my almost 2 decades of running and learning more about who I am. It is my hope that through my stories maybe you will see a bit of yourself as well and find a nugget of truth and inspiration to take with you. Let’s get started.
A while back I found myself in a conversation about the topic of developing your inner voice. Ohhhh what a great idea for a podcast episode I thought.
This is an episode that can easily write itself, I thought.
And then I put the idea on the metaphorical ideas shelf to come back to later.
Well, here’s what I found when I came back.
There is no possible way to dive into this topic and do it justice in one episode. I have spent years developing and strengthening my inner voice, which is really just another way of saying becoming a confident decision maker. To suggest that this is something that could be adequately grasped in one conversation or a series of bullet points is misleading and untrue. Like most character traits of value, this is a muscle to be built through practice, strengthened with use and continually refined over a lifetime.
I was not born a strong and confident decision maker and I have made many mistakes along the way. As a young adult, I generally made decisions based on what I thought I was expected to do, taking that path allowed me to avoid making decisions on my own for the most part. I didn’t think I wanted to be in the driver's seat making all those decisions anyway. All I needed to do was follow the path to the American dream, right?
College-check
Marriage-check
Job-check
Kids-check, check, check
And it all works out great right up until the rug gets pulled out from under you and you're faced with an unexpected tragedy, illness, hardship or loss. You now need to make decisions from a position you didn’t expect and have never found yourself in before. This is when you realize you have never really made decisions on your own.
Maybe that career you worked so hard for isn’t the best fit for you after all.
But you have come this far so now what? Does that mean you failed? Was it all a waste of time?
Maybe you find yourself in midlife and everything has pretty much gone as planned and it’s been wonderful, but now your kids are grown and you realize that up until now you have primarily made your decisions based on them and now you feel a little lost. And you aren’t sure what is next because you aren’t sure who you are outside of being their mom.
Maybe nothing specifically big or upsetting has happened but you are beginning to see that you have just been going through the motions, allowing decisions to be made for you and not really living as your most authentic, fully alive self.
Wherever you may find yourself in relation to those scenarios, if you have had one of those experiences, you will probably agree that the realization that you don’t have much experience or confidence in listening to your inner voice can be unsettling. This can lead to a sense of feeling out of control. But it doesn’t have to be this way. It is not too late for you to find your inner voice. It is not too late for you to become a confident decision maker.
When I talk about my inner voice, what I really mean is the trust I have in my ability to make decisions for myself. Some of us, women in particular, have some big hangups about this. Rather than going down the rabbit hole of why, I’m just going to state the obvious. We have a brain and it is our responsibility to use it. Whether we like it or not, decision making is a necessary part of life. Some decisions are big, some are small, but they all impact the direction our life takes. It is not somebody else’s responsibility to make decisions for us.
Today, I consider myself to be a confident decision maker. I have developed a strong inner voice and a decision making protocol that helps me to remain steady and anchored when situations feel tricky. Because the truth is, there will come a time when you will need to make a decision in a situation that feels impossible.
As I look back, there were some pivotal points in my life that worked together to move me from being someone who avoided making decisions to being someone who does not shy away from making decisions. One of the most impactful changes in how I make decisions came from identifying my core values. And that process is what I am going to share with you today.
Your values are your individual beliefs that motivate you to act one way or another. They serve as a guide for your behavior. Core values are the values that are most important to you. You already have core values. The process of identifying them brings you into alignment with your truest, most authentic self. Today is an opportunity to begin your journey to discover your core values.
Living out of alignment with your core values can be a significant and painful source of internal conflict. But if you haven’t yet discovered your core values, how can you know if you are living in alignment with them?
You already have values that you aspire to live up to probably without even giving it much thought. Many of your values are probably closely tied with your upbringing. We tend to carry on as adults with the values we learned as children. If you were to look at a list of values they would probably all sound like good ideas to live by. So what is the difference between your regular values and your core values? Your core values would be your TOP 3-5 non negotiables. This may seem counterintuitive at first, but it is important to accept that your values do not all have the same weight of importance. If I showed you a list of 75 values and you determined them all to be of equal importance they would be of no value to you as a decision making tool. Trying to align decisions to 75 values would lead to analysis paralysis every single time.
Let me put this another way for my perfectionist friends…. trying to make all the values your core values is very similar to trying to be perfect. It is unattainable and prevents you from taking action.
I understand that this can feel a little overwhelming. The first time I was asked to come up with my own 3-5 core values, I felt like a deer in headlights. How would I ever reduce it to 5? And my coach would not allow me to use “family” as a value-family refers to a group of people, she said. Our core values influence our relationship with our family members. For our purposes, in the context of "core values," a "value" refers to a fundamental belief or principle that guides a person decisions, actions, and behaviors, acting as a guiding compass for how they navigate different situations and interact with others; essentially, it represents what is considered most important and non-negotiable in terms of character and conduct.
Let’s take a moment to remove the pressure to do this just right. There is no one correct answer. And there is no incorrect answer. This is very personal and individual to you. Your core values already exist. You just need to uncover them.
Each individual’s core values have been influenced by both nature and nurture. In other words, your life experiences so far, combined with your natural inclinations and personality heavily influence your personal core values.
Here’s an example for you. People who grow up feeling unsafe during childhood often become adults who have a need for safety as a core value. This need for safety permeates all areas of their life such as physical, emotional, and financial. Their core value of safety informs how they follow their inner voice while making decisions. At the other end of the spectrum, a person who has not grown up lacking safety may be less likely to identify it as one of their core values and would find it to have less, if any, of an influence in their decision making. This is why it is so important to spend the time to figure out what your core values are.
Are you ready to get down to the nitty gritty of how to do this? Okay.
You can begin with a simple google search. Just type “core values list” and you will have access to several options. No one list is necessarily better than the others. You will use the list to narrow down your choices. If you are able, I would suggest printing the list so that you can write directly on it. You can begin by circling words that stand out to you as important and crossing out the ones that seem less important. If you do not have the ability or desire to print the list you can begin by writing down only the words that resonate with you. In this first step, move quickly through the words, circling or crossing out, writing down or passing by. Once you have moved through the entire list once, look at the words that have made it through the “first cut”. What do you notice about them? Are there any that are similar? Let’s group the ones that are similar together. Once you have similar words grouped into categories, you will probably have a more manageable list to work from. It’s time to work through your grouped words to see if they can be condensed into one that represents the meaning you are most aligned with. Maybe as you look at a group of words, one of them stands out as the best representative. Circle that word. The other words serve to describe and support the meaning of that word for you. Repeat that step with each grouping of words until you have singled out the one word that will represent the core value for that group of words for each group of words you have. As you look at the words you are now left with, which one resonates with you MOST? Put a star next to that one. How many words do you have now? It’s likely still more than 5 and that’s okay for now. It’s time to walk away from the list for a while.
Taking a break is important. If you continue to interact with this list while your brain has become fatigued frustration will set in. You don’t need that. Let your subconscious mind take over for a while and think about values in the background.
Here are 3 things to think about before you go back to your list.
1. Your core values will eventually be used in your life as an essential tool in your decision making process. Which of the words on your list do you feel strongly enough about to anchor your decisions to? If a word isn’t important enough to guide your decisions, it may be a value you hold, but it is not one of your core values.
2. You can think of your core values in terms of how you would be described if you were living as the best version of yourself. In other words, you live in a way that is so aligned with these values that they are the very words that someone would use to describe you.
3. Your core values describe how YOU set out to live and make your decisions. They are NOT a standard of behavior you set for other people. They are a tool for guiding your behavior, not a weapon to use against others.
Later today or tomorrow take a look at the words you chose today. Do those choices still resonate with you now that your subconscious mind has had some time to play with these ideas? You previously gave one of the words a star, indicating it’s importance above the others. Is there another word that jumps out to you as more important than the others that you would like to give your second star to?
Continue the ongoing process of selection until you get down to about 5. Be patient in the process. Take a day away from the words once you have it down to 5. It is helpful to come back to them with fresh eyes and mind each time.
Notice what comes up in your daily life as you walk through the selection of your core values. Are certain words and phrases standing out to you that didn’t before? Do certain personality traits suddenly stand out to you in yourself or others? Take note of these little things and then think about how this might inform your word selection for your core values.
Remember, this is a unique journey for each of us. You can’t just borrow someone else’s core values and expect to develop a strong and reliable inner voice of your own. Relying on someone else’s core values is like relying on someone else to be your inner voice and make decisions for you which leads to lack of trust in your own ability to make decisions.
You already have core values. I have just given you a simple process that you can use to uncover your unique core values for yourself. Next week I’ll be back to share with you how to use your core values to develop your inner voice and become a more confident decision maker.
That’s all I have for you today, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Running to Myself. You can find previous episodes on apple podcasts and spotify or on my website www.trishastanton.com. New episodes are released each Monday. You can subscribe on Apple or Spotify to automatically receive each new episode as it comes out.
If you know someone who you think would enjoy this podcast, please share it with them! I will be back next week to share a little more about my journey on the road to discovering my truest self.
In the meantime, if you want to know more about my coaching program or have questions about one-on-one coaching or life coaching in general, please visit my website at www.trishastanton.com or my Facebook Group The Simple Truth Coaching. I would love to hear from you!
Have a great week and remember, Mindset Matters!
