Announcement! Not Another Self-Help Podcast is coming! Amy and I need your personal development questions so hit us up here. Also, we’d be honored if you listened to our first two episodes which drop Friday, January 3rd!  Two weeks ago was all about looking back on not just 2019, but the entire decade that’s ending. If you haven’t listened to that one, check out episode 309, plus there’s a free journaling PDF. Let’s start with the basics: values and the way you speak to yourself. Some people love to have a word of the year, and values work could be married together with that. I talk about values at length in How To Stop Feeling Like Shit, and I’ll give you a crash course here. This will be an important refresher for those of you who’ve done values work before.  Think about a time in your life where you were proud of yourself. Maybe you took action on something you were afraid to do. Maybe you left a relationship, set a boundary with someone, told someone how you felt or went to a party where you didn’t know anyone. Think of that time.  What was the value you were honoring then? It might have been courage for being brave enough to do something scary. Or, authenticity for showing up as your best self. Or honesty and integrity for speaking up about something that was important to you. Or, trust for trusting yourself enough to walk away from a situation you know wasn’t good for you. It might be ALL of those things, but what are the values that stand out to you the most?  I’m thinking of the many clients I’ve had over the last decade and the brave things they’ve done. I had a client who had a strained relationship with her mother, who sat down, planned out everything she wanted to say to her mother and had the talk. Years of resentment, frustration, and hurt came together in a conversation she was proud of. She honored courage, honesty, and authenticity.  I’ve had a few clients start new businesses and quit their jobs. Honoring meaningful work, creativity, and determination.  I’m thinking of a client I had who had a difficult year-- the most difficult year of her life. So much loss and struggle...that time in her life she honored perseverance, self-trust, and optimism.  So again, what values have you honored over the last decade? Sure, you’ve probably wanted to honor more of them, and maybe didn’t. Don’t dwell on those. Your mind may want to point out all the aspired values you have and didn’t do. That you wanted to be more courageous, that you wanted to focus more on your growth or have more balance in your life. For the sake of this exercise, let that go for now.  The reason I want you to think of these values, to think about the behaviors you’ve done in the past that have made you proud of who you are, is because those are a key to looking ahead. If you’re proud of the courageous thing you did this year, and thinking about that feeling is gratifying, your next step is to think about how you can get more of that in your life in this year coming up.  Let me remind you, that it’s typically never about the thing you do or want to do, it’s about the feeling you’ll get from having done it or the experience you’ll have while doing it. For example, when I write books, it’s not about the book. It’s about having written it, the pride I get in having done this BIG thing, and honoring my values along the way.  Listen to today’s episode to hear more about the next important tool I want you to focus on in the new year, and that’s your self-talk.  http://yourkickasslife.com/313   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices