How To Get In Touch With Your Top 3 Values!

Today, I am putting on the hat of a Career Coach. Career coaching has been a part of my life-coaching work with my coaching clients, especially since the pandemic. In this blog post, I will discuss a topic that people rarely touch upon and how it can affect our answers or hinder us from being authentic during a job interview.

I acknowledge that showing up for a job interview takes a lot of courage. It requires attention, preparation, focus, energy, confidence, and excitement. Nevertheless, it is a great experience. Each time we are invited to an interview, it is an opportunity that presents itself. Of course, we would do everything to prepare and show up 100%.

What sets the tone for the entire interview is the beginning, when interviewers learn about you. They want to know who you are, why you are a good fit for the role you are applying for, and their organization. Ultimately, you will represent the company if you get the role. Therefore, you must be able to express yourself and do so with confidence and with authenticity. Most importantly, can you show your interviewers that you know yourself better than anyone?

Of course, my response is “Yes!” because no one knows you better than you do.

Anytime someone tells me they don’t seem to know themselves, it is NOT true. What bridges the gap here is the connection — the connection to yourself. Values play a significant role in self-connection.

When we are not in touch with our values, the pauses, the utterings of the “um” and “em,”… or the stuttering in the interviewees’ responses appear. You can see interviewees struggling to put their thoughts together, where the thoughts are trying to process on their own to form words, and the words are working hard to formulate a coherent sentence about the interviewee. What a struggling production! Here, we are only at the start of the interview, 5 minutes in, and you have 45 more minutes to go if you are lucky.

Imagine the relief of being able to share about yourself without feeling too humble, too proud, or like you’re bragging. What if you could eliminate the cluttering thoughts in your head and speak with clarity and confidence? This is the power of being in touch with your values, bringing a sense of ease and focus to your interview experience.

The good news is that when we are in touch with our values, these cluttering thoughts disappear. Being in touch with our values can lead to more confident and authentic responses, making the interview process smoother and more successful.

Now, let me share with you a powerful coaching hack that can transform your interview experience!

Ask yourself, “What are my top 3 values?” Write them down. Write them down in your journal if you have a journal. If you don’t, consider getting one and start writing today. Your top 3 values are the things that are most important for you. Then, go through each value and employ the five-why strategy. I love the five-why strategy, as we get very vulnerable. The five-why strategy has us question each reason.

Here is an example, and the value is family:

Question: “Why is your family important to you?”

Answer: “My family supports me.”

Question: “Why is it important for your family to support you?”

Answer: “Their support helps me reach my goal.”

Question: “Why is it important that you reach your goal?”

Answer: “Reaching my goal will help me help many students.”

Question: Why is helping many students so important to you?”

Answer: “Helping as many students as possible is important because they will use their skills to help other people and will help make a better world.”

Question: Why is it important for more people to help make a better world?

Answer: It’s important. We’ll be able to live in peace.

The example I provided above is a simple one. However, the responses I have seen in the past have brought out the best in my clients. They allow themselves to get vulnerable and become connected to themselves. Their responses are eye-openers. They are empowering and inspiring.

Almost always, the responses show the responders are bigger than who they really are. They start connecting with themselves because they also get in touch with their purpose in life. This connection with our life purpose is transformative, inspiring us and giving us a clear sense of direction, sparking our inspiration and motivation. It’s a feeling of being part of something bigger, a source of inspiration that activates your motivation.

Next time you struggle with the question, “Tell me about yourself,” consider connecting yourself to your values and finding out why each value is important to you. Try asking “why” five times and see what you discover.

Till next time…

Find your flow. Find your freedom.

~Audra~

******************************************

Your shares are important and will greatly inspire and benefit others. I invite you to share your comments with us on Instagram @composurecoaching.

If you missed our blogpost from last week on finding flow, be sure to click on the title to check out “The Top 4 P’s in the Workplace”.

I help my clients discover joy and find flow. If you feel there is anything that is holding you back in finding flow in your daily life — whether that may be leading and motivating your team at work, or taking your business to the next level, or it may be finding it challenging to go out and socialize — as your coach, I can provide a process that will connect you with your strengths and your true capacities to move forward.

If there’s something that you’d like to bring into your life, I’d like to help you!

Connect with me via email to book your free consultation today.

~ Audra ~