It’s that time again. With each New Year come new resolutions. And in these unprecedented times of lockdowns and lay-offs we all are revisiting and revising our priorities. Here are a couple of techniques here to help you revitalize your priorities and values.

Examine Your Priorities and Values

As we look toward the dawning of a new year, now is the time to examine our priorities as well as our resources and get back in touch with the values that shape our thoughts and drive our decisions. This process is not linear but rather incremental.

Bring clarity to the process in four stages:

Stage one: Affirm and discover your core values.

Stage two: Align your values with the people and causes you care about.

Stage three: Commit your time, talent, and treasure to those people and causes.

Stage four: Intentionally live a purposeful life surrounded by the people you love and the causes you want to support.

Try the REAL Acronym

One technique to help get in touch with your true values is to use the acronym REAL. It’s a way to focus your priorities in life. Define REAL by answering these four questions:

  1. How is this Relevant to my life?
  2. How does this Engage my values?
  3. How can I take Action?
  4. How can this inspire my Legacy?

The REAL concept creates a synergy of the heart and the mind that helps to focus on listening and learning how to align your with your priorities and resources. As a technique, REAL redirects energy and empowers awareness and purpose.

Designed to free us to imagine and dream of what we can accomplish, REAL opens pathways to sharing and building a greater understanding of our common humanity — at work, at home, or in the community. In the end, you’ll live a more impactful and meaningful life, sharing your unique time, talent, and treasure to change the world one good deed at a time.

Ready For A REAL Challenge?

This coming new year, I challenge you to make a heartfelt effort to get back in touch with your core values. When you live a more REAL life and believe in your values and your work, you lead by example.

In one of my favorite quotes from Mother Teresa, she says “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

If you believe that this is a truly achievable resolution then it will not only make you feel good, but it will have a positive effect on each and every life you touch.

Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2021!