Re: So many choices!

[nellie]

Carrie,

This is an area I’ve been paying a lot of attention to myself since “discovering” that I have ADD. I have learned that goals in and of themselves are not the end destination. Once you achieve them it seems there’s always something else to achieve.. For example, I thought once that when I had a degree that would be “it.” There have been many such experiences throughout my life.

What ultimately made more sense to me was that I had to define what my life values are and then the rest falls in to place. Essentially once you know what truly is important to you then the choices you make and the goals you set become much easier to carry out. Sometimes the answer comes by asking yourself the basic question why – why is this this important to me?

If you define and rank your values they become a meter by which to make decisions, be they simple day to day related or more complex. For example, should you become the PTA president – is community volunteerism high on your list of values or will it interfere with something more important to you – say family relationships?

Or, should you say, take a job running an NGO in Africa for the United Nations and move away for you family for a year? Perhaps this would be great for your resume and fits in with a value like “to make a difference in the world,” but how does that hold out against some of your other values? If someone placed love at the top of the list this choice might not fit in.

“They” say one should narrow it down to 5 top values. There are a lot of sites online that deal with this issue, but here are a few fun links to get started. I found it to be an enlightening process.

This one has an interacting ranking tool – pretty fun

http://www.career-test.biz/values_assessment.htm

These two have interesting articles to help clarify the concept and get you started:

http://www.suite101.com/content/the-values-based-life-a21013

http://www.explorelifeblog.com/journal/2007/7/9/what-are-your-top-10-values.html

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