Discussion Topic #2 Prompts

Prompt #1: Values Worksheet: What were your top 5 values? What kinds of defining
characteristics did you associate with your values as you crossed them off the list one at a time
until you had only one value listed? What did you learn about your values hierarchy through
this activity?

My top five values were:

1.) Community
2.) Creativity
3.) Integrity
4.) Personal Development
5.) Responsibility and accountability

When I was first crossing values off my list, I considered which values were
interconnected. For instance, I crossed off honesty because I feel like it is included in integrity.
I crossed off helping other people because I feel like creating or focusing on community is a
form of helping others. This way, the five I was left with were multi-faceted included other
values other than what they offer at face value. It was important to me to choose values that
included the thought for others and high-standards for ourselves.

As I continued to cross the values off until there was only one left, I asked myself which
values do I espouse, and which values carry the most weight in my daily life and actions

(Harrington & Hall, 2007, p. 26). Ultimately that left me with responsibility and
accountability.

What I learned about the hierarchy of my values is that others are important, but so is
self. Harrington and Hall (2007) mention the importance of finding a career that aligns with
your values because that will offer the most cohesive and satisfying fit. What I am looking for in
a career is just that: one where I can help and positively impact others, use my skills, and grow
as a person as well.

Prompt #2: Take a moment to revisit your Identities Table (you completed this as part of last
week’s discussion topic – Prompt #4). Take a look at each of your “areas of identity” and
reflect on your responses there – in light of your core values. What are your core values in
each of those “areas of identity?” Highlight several key “areas of identity” that guide you in life
and think about whether the values you ascribed to these areas are values that you truly live by
or simply talk about. Discuss any “values gaps”

Values: Identities:

Communtiy Shift Supervisor

Creativity Wife

Integrity Home-owner

Personal development Atudent

Responsibility/accountability Fitness/nutrition enthusiast

Coincidentally, my core values already align with my professional work. I work at

Starbucks which focuses on all of personal values. They are highly centered around creating
and positively impacting their communities; they encourage creativity in their partners and their
customers; they value integrity, honesty, and personal responsibility for our actions; and they
encourage personal development for their partners. In fact, a Starbucks partner must complete
a personal development plan before promoting. The fact that my core values align with my
workplace and career is probably one of the biggest reasons why I enjoy my work.

Integrity, personal development, and accountability also play into my role as a wife. I
am honest with my husband, and work on myself constantly to become a better for myself and
my relationship with my husband. I also take pride in holding myself accountable in my
relationship and being open, honest, and responsible when there is conflict. Letting go of pride
in my relationship with my husband has had an immensely positive impact on our ability to
communicate and function as a couple. Quality relationships and loyalty were not values that
made it into my top 5, but they were in my top 10. These values also play a role in how I view
and participate in my marriage and friendships.
 Integrity, responsibility/accountability, and personal development also come into play in
my identity as a student. Being able to be creative in my school work not only holds me
accountable plagiarism, but helps me grow as person as I consider each assignment and give it
my best.

I feel that I do live by my values, or at least try my best. I believe in treating people
honestly, fairly, and kindly and think that the way I am able to connect with others is a
reflection of me living my values. This assignment has definitely given me something to reflect
on in terms of if I’m living my values truly or not. Meeting my expectations in this area of life
will require consistent evaluation!

Prompt #3: Dreams and Desires Worksheet: What underlying meaning did you discover
through exploring your dreams and desires in this manner? Can you see a connection between
what you desire and your inner sense of purpose? Explain.

In completing the dreams and desires worksheet there were 3 life-areas I found I had
the most: being a home-owner, a travel enthusiast, and personal development. While I had
dreams in other life-areas, these three had the most. I found that while I still have a large list
of things I want to improve on my home, outside of that there are not any material things I
desire. After home-owner dreams and desires, travel dreams had the second highest number of
desires. There are still a lot of places I want to go and things I want to see. And third highest
on my list of dreams and desires was personal development. There are several personality traits
I want to work on and personal goals I want to achieve.

In the Lemming Dilemma, Emmy the Lemming asks Lenny what he wants to create and
why this is important to him (Hutchens, 2002). In thinking about my sense of purpose, I started
by asking myself what I want to create. I want to create a happy and fulfilled life during which I
can positively impact the lives of others. Next I asked myself why I wanted this (like Emmy did
to Lenny). I want a happy and fulfilled life based on my dreams and desires because it would
bring contentment for myself. While achieving my purpose of helping others would also bring
contentment to myself, this part of my sense of purpose is important to me because I see the
struggle of others and want to help make their life a little happier. My dreams and desires
worksheet mostly focuses on fulfilling the personal part of my purpose, but not the impacting
others part. I feel that that part of my purpose is already partially satisfied by current job role.
Prompt #4: Lemming Debrief: Think about the structures in your life – select two or three
and discuss how each of these structures influence your life, the way you view the world, the
way you relate to others, and your ability to be effective.

Natural Talents and Gifts:

Having a natural talent for creativity makes me view the world through an artistic lens.
When I worked in early childhood the creative process was very important to me. I am an
advocate for art in education, and believe that the importance of it for learning should not be
overlooked. Because I am a creative person, I am also drawn to creative activities which impact
my work, social, and home life.

Geographical:

Growing up in south Texas has played a more pervasive role in my life than I realized
before. There are some obvious things that have influenced my personality and preferences
such as tex-mex food practically being written into my DNA, words that I say (like y’all), natural
southern hospitality, and an intense experience/knowledge of the Latino culture. Something less
obvious that I believe impacted my interests was the Texas heat. Though I developed a deep,
passionate love of swimming both because of the heat and having a pool in the backyard
growing up, I didn’t otherwise enjoy spending time outside. This has translated into my adult
life as well…I still don’t enjoy spending time outside.

Family Experience:

Family time played an important role in my childhood. We always spent the big holidays
with my step-dads family and every summer we travelled to Colorado to spend time with my
mom’s side of the family. Spending so much time and being close with my extended family has
created a love and value of family and close relationships.

Though I was close with my extended family, I was not close with my stepdad. In fact,
he never had a relationship with me or my siblings. This has had a tremendous impact on my
world view as I do not fully understand the relationship between a father and a daughter, nor
do I know what it is like to have a dad who cares about their children. It’s something I’m very
disappointed to be missing out on in life.
Prompt #5: Make some connections between the Lemming Dilemma and the HBR article “Do
your commitments match your convictions?” In particular, comment on “inertia” with respect
to the structures in your life. Elaborate on the positive and negative aspects of inertia with
respect to living a values-centered life.

A main concern for Emmy in the “Lemming Dilemma” was her purpose not matching up
with jumping off the cliff. In “Do your commitments match your convictions”, Sull and Houlder
(2005) urge us to “mind the gap” between our values and how we spend our time/money. They
mention that gaps in our values and our lifestyle grow over time and that “sometimes the gap
results from a reluctance to commit time, energy, or money to what we value” or because we
become engaged in active inertia, or the tendency to rely on and accelerate solutions that have
worked in the past (Sull & Houlder, 2005, p. 7). This can prevent us from properly aligning our
values with our lifestyles.

In science, inertia is the resistance to change until forced into motion. In a negative
way, inertia can keep us in our old ways and prevent us from developing personally, or even
from seeing things in a new light or perspective. It can keep us in the cycle of doing the same
things we have always done and getting the same results we have always gotten. In a positive
way, inertia could be what holds us to our current values and life-structures. If your values and
structure are positive and aligned with you as a person, remaining the same and sticking to
your old ways could be a good thing.

I would say that inertia was what was holding me back from living the healthy life I’ve
always wanted. What really propelled me into motion and aligning my values about health and
fitness with my actual lifestyle was 2 things: 1.) a specific realization and 2.) a specific
elimination diet. The realization was that if I wanted to look and feel healthy, then I had to live
and make healthy choices every single day. This was a wakeup call to me that I could not keep
doing what I was doing on a daily basis and expect change. I had to live a different life daily.
The second thing that propelled me into motion to align my values with my life was completing
a round of Whole30. This elimination diet had a profound impact on my relationship and
behavior with food. Seeing the difference the diet made in my life has created permanent
changes in my dietary habits. Without both of these events in my life, I might have stayed in a
state of inertia, never experiencing growth or change…or it may have just taken me a lot longer
to get where I wanted to be.
Prompt #6: Imagine that your life exists exactly the way that you want it to be, right at this
moment – regardless of what you believe is actually possible. What do you see? Where are
you? Who are you with? What do you do with your time? Be specific. Also, what underlying
personal meaning, values, personal characteristics, desires are represented and/or satisfied in
that life?

If I were living my “perfect” vision of a life, I would be in Austin, TX in a nice home on

Lake Travis with my husband and our dog. My sister, her husband, and three children live
nearby so we would visit them all the time…at least twice a week, probably more. My husband
would still have his current job, but would be working remotely, and I would be a successful
life-coach with many happy clients. I would spend my free time taking care of my health by
working out at home and going for runs by the lake. Outside of that I would be taking
advantage of the many live-music and social opportunities that are abundant in Austin (in
addition to spending time with my family).

What is represented in my “ideal life” is first and foremost the importance of family.
Quality relationships was among my top ten personal values, and being near my family directly
aligns with that value. The value of community is also represented here as in my “ideal life” I
desire to be involved in the local social events and become immersed in the community culture
in Austin. Meaningful work was also among my top ten personal values and that is where
becoming a successful life coach comes into play. I constantly strive to have a positive impact
on others, and becoming a successful life coach would fulfill not only a personal goal, but would
align with my values and the impact I want to have on the world. And finally, having my
husband be able to keep his current job (which he really enjoys), but work remotely from
Austin would not completely disrupt his life and perhaps even make it easier on him as he could
work from home (which he likes to do).

From this prompt, I can see that the most important things to me are family,
community, positive impact through my work, and my health.
Reference:
Harrington, B., & Hall, D. (2007). Career Management and Work-Life Integration: Using Self

Assessment to Navigate Contemporary Careers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Hutchens, D. (2002). The lemming dilemma: Living with purpose, leading with vision.

Waltham,MA: Pegasus Communications.

Sull, D., & Houlder, D. (2005). Do Your Commitments Match Your Convictions? Harvard

Business Review. Retrieved July 8, 2018.