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The first step in the personal branding process is all about self-awareness. You need to be self-reflective to get clear about your personal brand. There are six personal brand drivers on which to focus: values, passions, superpowers, differentiators, purpose and goals. For each of these, spend time getting clear. Together, these drivers help you define your unique promise of value.
In this article we will focus on values.
Your values are your operating principles. They serve as a foundation for living your most fulfilling, authentic life. Your value system can impact how you feel, act and react. When your values are in alignment—meaning you are living them fully—you’re energized, motivated and engaged. But when your actions are not fully in alignment with your values (or when those around you are trampling on your values), you can feel a little off your game. You can even become the person no one wants to be around. That’s why it’s important to clearly identify your values and then integrate them into what you do and how you do it.
So how do you determine your values?
Often, the way to determine your values is to think about the things that annoy and frustrate you. When you ask yourself, “Why does this annoy me?” the answer will likely be tied to a violation of one of your core values. For example, if it drives you crazy when someone who enters a building ahead of you doesn’t hold the door for you, it might be because you value courtesy or empathy or kindness.
To unearth one of your values, ask yourself this question: What’s my biggest pet peeve? Then think about what’s behind that frustration. Give your value a name and write your definition of it. Words mean different things to different people. What does that word mean to you?
The Personal/Company Values Conundrum
One question that comes up often relates to the personal/company brand value connection. “I’m clear about my values and my company wants me to live their values, but there isn’t a one-for-one match. How do I reconcile that?”
One fallacy about values is that you should work for an organization whose values match yours. There will never be perfect one-for-one value congruence with your company—and that’s OK. But when your values clash significantly, you can become frustrated, angry or disengaged.
To be clear, the actual operating values of an organization can sometimes be very different from what they publish on their website. Sometimes, the values your company espouses are not the ones you experience in your day to day. For example, if your company describes itself as a place where collaboration is encouraged and rewarded but what’s really valued in your organization is competition and winning, you might feel duped if you do your best work in harmony and connection.
Connect your values to your work
When you live your values, people know what you are about and what’s important to you. In fact, when you fully live your values, others can discern them without your having to spell it out. Sometimes the words people use to describe you are the personality characteristics associated with your values. For example, if you value optimism and hear people describe you as “so positive,” you know that you’re living your values visibly.
What’s the next personal brand driver?
In the next installment of this series on personal brand discovery, we’ll focus on passions—those things that energize you and bring you joy and happiness. For now, get in touch with your values and commit to living them fully. Follow me here at Forbes so you can be notified about the other articles in this series.
William Arruda is a keynote speaker, co-founder of CareerBlast.TV and co-creator of the Personal Brand Power Audit - a complimentary quiz that helps you measure the strength of personal brand.
