Conducting values-clarification exercises

Conducting values-clarification exercises. One exercise we have seen families enjoy involves each member reflecting on and answering the question, "What matters most to me and why?" Families we know have also used the question, "What does a life well spent look like?" To discuss this question, we have had older family members gather in a group and come up with their answers. The rising generation family members gather together separately and imagine what their answers would look like if they were, say, 50 years old and looking back on their lives up to that point. Then both groups come back together and share their thoughts. Another exercise we have used with families involves first defining, together, what they see as the family's "founding values." Then, each generation separates to define, from their perspective, the family's "present values." From the combination of founding and present values, the family can decide to make a Family Values Statement. This statement does not need to be set in stone; it can change as the family's present values change.

— from The Relationship With Yourself (Traits/Reflection) · Complete Family Wealth by James E Hughes Jr., Susan E. Massenzio, and Keith Whitaker

In the book

You discover your strengths not by guessing but by looking back honestly at the moments you did your very best work and asking what it was about you that made it go so well. Your values surface when you sit with the simple question, what matters most to me, and why — or when you examine your life through four lenses: the sweet moments full of vitality, the sad ones that broke your heart, the heroes you admire, and the story of how you would want to be remembered, because each of those points straight at a value you hold. Use that material to build something larger — an actual philosophy to live by, formed by sitting with the biggest question of all, why am I here; this is finally what it means to ask, seriously, how should I live — to search out your own true north, the moral center of everything you do. — The Relationship With Yourself (Traits/Reflection)

Also belongs to

Related