Here's a quick, three-minute tip where we break down a mental health or personal development topic in 180 seconds to help you shift or reframe your perspective.

Today's topic explores an easy, fun way to identify some of your values by looking at the people who inspire you.

As a quick refresher, values are essentially an internal guidance system that help us to decide what to move toward or away from based on what we find important or meaningful. 

Because they're more internal, and not right on the surface, values can sometimes take a little bit of work to figure out or to get clear on.

So to try this exercise:

• Identify three people you look up to. They can be people you know, like family members, friends, people in your community, or they could be famous, maybe an athlete, a musician, actor, artist, or a well-known entrepreneur. 
  
  
• Reflect on each person, thinking about what characteristics or qualities they each embody that you appreciate or respect. (Maybe it's their work ethic, or their sense of humor, or maybe their sense of community, or their creativity and how they express themselves, etc.)
  
  
• Jot down those qualities under each person's name to create three different lists.  
  
  
• Once you've gotten a number of characteristics down for each person, cross compare among the three lists and see if you notice any similarities or even the same qualities between two or even all three people. You can circle those or make a new list. 
  
  
• Next, identify at least 3-5 overall values that you might have based on what you've written down. You can also use a list of values available online to help give you some ideas.
  
  
• Finally, test it out. Notice how you spend your free time for the next several days, and see if it's reflective of those values you identified. Or, you can intentionally use those values to make decisions about how to spend your free time, and that can help you to further clarify what's really important to you. 

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*Disclaimer: The information contained in this episode is for the sole purpose of being informative and is not considered complete. It should not replace consultation with a qualified professional.