When I talk with people about what ultimate success looks like, the answer I get is a holistic one.

We want success in our career of course. We also want to be a success in all aspects of our life. And, we want to find fulfillment and happiness.

The good news is that success – even in business – coincides with fulfillment & happiness. In fact, it’s directly proportional.

A key to have fulfillment and happiness AND success is creating alignment in our values and the goals that we have.

Values are our deepest level of mental programming. Our values are a measuring stick on how we spend our time. If our actions are congruent with our values, we feel our time is being spent positively.

Values drive our motivation. We want to take action in pursuit of what we value. That is why aligning our values with our goals is a critical step to helping us achieve them.

Here’s four simple steps to align your values with your goals.

Know your values in an area of your life

Pick an area of life and figure out what you value in that particular pillar. Until we know what our values are, we cannot intentionally live them.

Get to know your values by reflecting what is important to you in that area of life. Also, think about what motivates you.

Our values are already inside us, driving and motivating us. Bring them to conscious awareness to live them intentionally.

Choose a goal

This is simple. Choose a particular goal in an area of life that is important to you. Something that you want to achieve or have.

Make your goal a SMART goal: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time bound. Creating a goal in this manner will help you understand the action that it will take to get there.

Link your values to actions

Take a look at your top 2-3 values in the area of life of the goal you want to achieve.

Ask yourself this: “What can I do that will help me live a value AND that will also help me achieve the goal?”

In my health, clarity is a value of mine. I desire to know what is going on with my body & mind and what to do to get the results I want. This approach gives me confidence in my ability to achieve my health goals.

I research programs that would help me hit the health benchmarks I wanted. I came across “Eat Right for Your Blood Type.” I loved the clarity around eating this list of foods and avoiding this list of foods.

I’ve read reports on the accuracy of the “blood type” diet since then. Yet, for me, staying close to the strategy in this concept has yielded the results I want with the comfort I get from the clarity.

Modify traditions to fit you

It’s said that no matter what you want to do, someone has gone before you and done it. We should figure out what made them successful and replicate it.

That’s true to a point. However, you should seek to understand if how that person created success is aligned with your values.

For business owners, generating business is one of the biggest keys to success. If you don’t have anyone buying what you do, nothing else much matters. So we know that we must generate business to be successful.

Using this example, how you generate the business should be modified to align with the values that you have.

Aligning values with goals reduces the friction to achievement and increases the chance of achievement.

It’s why I incorporate deep-level values work in executive coaching. Being able to align someone’s values to their goals puts them on the fast track to success, fulfillment & happiness.

If you want to align your values and goals to help you get what you want, schedule a free coaching consultation here.