What You Value (And How to Tell)

Last week I talked about how important it is to make regular time for your pure creative practice. 

Once that’s in place, the next step is to make a stable financial foundation for yourself so your creativity can do its work worry-free. So it can pour forth through you in its purest form.

How do you do this?

Not by adding up what you spend and trying to cut it in half, eating white bread and canned beans through 2024, nor figuring out how to survive on 25 variations of mac and cheese. Discussions of financial stability always seem to start with the question, “What Can You Cut Out?” 

We’re going to go a different way. I’m going to show you how to look at what you value; what matters to you. Once you know that, it’s easy to figure out how much money you need to feel and be stable.

How to Figure Out What Matters To You

This link will take you to a list of 40 or so possible values, and walk you through narrowing them to your top five. 

My top five values are: Love/Relationships, Freedom, Learning, Health, and Spirituality. (I cheated and included relationships with love. Couldn’t help it). What’s important about knowing this? Part of living my values is to make sure when I spend money, I’m being true to, and honoring them.

The converse is also true--that when I’m spending money on something that doesn’t honor my values, I feel deprivation and lack, no matter how much money I spend.

Clothes...Glorious Clothes

My quick example is buying clothes. For years I thought buying the right clothes would make me more lovable. If you’ve ever tried to buy something to make yourself more lovable (or even if you haven’t), you know it never works. 

In fact, to honor my Love/Relationships value required time, not money at all. 

It will only take about 15 minutes (plus a bit of sweating) to find your top values. I guarantee once you do that, it will make figuring out how much money you need much easier. To my amazement, honoring many of my values requires no money at all.

If you need help, book a chat with me and I’ll give you some pointers.

Your work matters. Because it matters so much, it deserves financial peace. 

Love,

Christy

PS: If you’re ready to begin to sell your art, I have a new freebie for you to use: Keep Calm and Sell Something. You can download it here. 

I am also running two individual coaching programs. Create Your Day Job and Sell Your Art Peacefully. If you’d like to talk about whether either of these programs would be a fit for you, please book a chat with me.