How to Approach the Course

Have an open mind

Some of the exercises will resonate with you more than others. Some will help you point out things in your life that are really important and others might not. Try to approach each exercise with an open mind and be mindful not to force anything. Anything you learn from these exercises will hopefully come naturally.

There are no right or wrong answers

Everything you think and answer while completing these exercises will be unique to you and two people’s answers may look completely different to one another. This is why they are our personal values. 

The choice is ours 

Although the purpose of this course is to help us identify what we value in life, I feel it might be good to state now before the course starts that our values don’t need to own us. By generating awareness of what we value in life, we can then be mindful of when our thoughts and behaviours are moving us towards or away from our values. We can then choose in the moment how we would most like to proceed. 

Don't rush

If you’re anything like me, you will be tempted to burn through all of the exercises to tick them off and get it done as soon as possible. However the point of this course is to develop an awareness of our values over time. It is unlikely that we will determine this in the space of a couple days. Reflection over weeks, months, or even years will eventually lead to greater self awareness. This will likely be the result of watching how we act in various situations and experimenting by trying on different values. Exercises that require deep reflection can also be mentally exhausting. We might get more from the exercises if we space some of them out a little.

I recommend you spread this course out between approximately two to four weeks. After that point it is likely that you will have developed more awareness of the concept of values and their influence in your life. Further learning regarding values after this point will come naturally through your new and improved awareness. Burning through all the material in one sitting is unlikely to reap the same benefits as spreading it out over a longer period of time. 

Values at this point in time

The last point I would like to make is that this course will help you identify what your values are right now, in this point in time. Although values typically remain fairly stable over time, they can change. Therefore, repeating this exercise one, five or twenty years from now might yield slightly different values. This isn’t a bad thing. If anything, it indicates that we might benefit from continual mindfulness and awareness of what we find ourselves drawn towards in order to live meaningfully. 

Order

This course has been designed to be completed in a linear order, so try not to jump around. Certain parts of the course might seem confusing if you do.

Time to complete the course

This course could take anywhere from 5-10 hours to be completed, depending on how long you spend on each exercise. I suggest spreading it over at least a couple weeks for maximum benefit and retention of the information and reflections you will be making.

Commit to a time

Are you likely to forget to complete this course? Increase your chances of completing it by planning when the best times are during the week for you to work on it.

Take a brief moment now to plan when you will work on the course. If you like to use a calendar app such as Google Calendar, then that might be a good place to set a reminder.