The Live Your Values Deck: Sort Out, Honor, and Practice What Matters Most to You

By Lisa Congdon and Andreea Niculescu

Vibrantly illustrated by artist and author Lisa Congdon—and co-written by Congdon and her friend, brand strategist Andreea Niculescu—this deck will help you live in accordance to what matters most to you.

Living your values increases your compassion, reduces your stress, enhances your confidence, and allows you to experience more intimacy in your relationships. These 78 cards offer you a practical set of tools for determining your core values and practicing them in your daily life. Start off with a simple sorting exercise, then dive deeper into your highest values with the prompts and activities listed on each card. The accompanying booklet helps you use the deck to enrich your life and improve your well-being.

HANDS-ON EXERCISE: More engaging than a self-help book and less daunting than trying to list your values on a blank page, this deck offers a fun, hands-on way to identify your core principles and integrate them into your life.

GREAT GUIDANCE: Along with helping you identify your values, these cards offer advice, suggestions for short-term and long-term goals, and prompts that will help you reflect and take action in meaningful ways.

LONG-TERM USE: As life inevitably changes and new milestones are reached, it's good to re-center and reconnect with your values. This deck can be used to see how your values have changed and what new ones have emerged over time.

Perfect for:

• Anyone contemplating a big life change (moving, switching jobs, etc.)
• People looking for personal growth or self-reflection tools
• Individuals who want to make meaningful New Year's resolutions
• Fans of Lisa Congdon's previous publishing, especially You Will Leave A Trail Of Stars

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chronicle Books Digital
• Release date: Nov 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781797208862

Lisa Congdon

Artist and illustrator Lisa Congdon is best known for her hand-lettering, paintings, drawings, and pattern designs. She keeps a daily blog about her life, work, and inspirations called Today is Going to be Awesome. Lisa lives in Oakland, California, with her partner, chihuahua, and two cats. You can see more of her work at www.lisacongdon.com.

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 by Lisa Congdon and Andreea Niculescu.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-7972-0886-2 (epub, mobi)

ISBN 978-1-7972-0612-7 (deck)

Design by Kristen Hewitt.

Chronicle Books LLC

680 Second Street

San Francisco, California 94107

www.chroniclebooks.com

Contents

INTRODUCING LIVE YOUR VALUES 7

ABOUT LIVE YOUR VALUES FOUNDERS ANDREEA AND LISA 9

Andreea’s Story 9

Lisa’s Story 11

HOW LIVE YOUR VALUES CAME TO BE 12

WHAT YOU’LL FIND IN THE DECK 14

HOW TO USE THIS DECK TO IDENTIFY YOUR CORE VALUES 15

USING YOUR CORE VALUES TO MAKE POSITIVE LIFE CHANGES 17

DIGGING DEEPER INTO YOUR CORE VALUES 18

ASSESSING YOUR CURRENT LIFE THROUGH THE LENS OF YOUR CORE VALUES 19

MAKING DECISIONS BASED ON YOUR CORE VALUES 20

DOING THE EXERCISE WITH OTHERS, AND SHARING YOUR EXPERIENCES 22

USING YOUR CORE VALUES AS A FILTER FOR REFLECTION 23

ACTIVISM 25

ADVENTURE 27

AMBITION 29

ASSERTVENESS 31

BEAUTY 33

CAREER 35

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT 37

CIVILITY 39

COLLABORATION 41

COMPASSION 43

CONTRIBUTION 45

COURAGE 47

CREATIVITY 49

CURIOSITY 51

DIVERSITY 53

EDUCATION 55

EMPATHY 57

ENVIRONMENT 59

EQUALITY 61

EXCELLENCE 63

FAMILY 65

FORGIVENESS 67

FUN 69

GENEROSITY 71

GENUINENESS 73

GRATITUDE 75

GROWTH 77

HARMONY 79

HEALTH 81

HONESTY 83

HUMILITY 85

HUMOR 87

INCLUSIVENESS 89

INDEPENDENCE 91

INTEGRITY 93

INTUITION 95

JUSTICE 97

KINDNESS 99

KNOWLEDGE 101

LEADERSHIP 103

LOVE 105

LOYALITY 107

MINDFULNESS 109

MODERATION 111

NON-CONFORMITY 113

OPENESS 115

OPTIMISM 117

ORDER 119

PARENTING 121

PASSION 123

PATIENCE 125

PURPOSE 127

RATIONALITY 129

RESILIENCE 131

RESPECT 133

RESPONSIBILITY 135

RISK-TAKING 137

ROMANCE 139

SELF-AWARENESS 141

SELF-DISCIPLINE 143

SELF-EXPRESSION 145

SELF-RESPECT 147

SERVICE 149

SIMPLICITY 151

SOICAL CONNECTION 153

SOLITUDE 155

SPIRTUALITY 157

STABILITY 159

SUCCESS 161

THRIFT 163

VULNERABILITY 165

WISDOM 167

WORK ETHIC 169

WHAT ARE My VALUES? WHAT DO STAND FOR? WHAT AM I MADE OF? WHAT MATTERS MOST TO ME? HOW DO I KNOW My ACTIONS AND DECISIONS REFLECT My VALUES?

Some people are fortunate enough to have the answers to these questions at their fingertips and to use them to guide every decision in their lives. But what about the rest of us? If we don’t know the answers to these questions, how can we make the decisions that are best for us? Because we live in a world with increasingly intense distractions and mental pollution, many of us have lost touch with what really matters to us. We may even feel like we’re living our lives on autopilot, passively making decisions in the rush of our everyday lives without taking the time to reflect on what’s most important.

What really matters to us can be summed up as a set of values. Our values are the underlying principles that we hold as most important. Every action we take, consciously or not, comes from an underlying value—one we likely learned and embody through a combination of things like family experience, culture, role models, and life experience.

Here’s the exciting part: Research tells us that when we live a life that is guided by an awareness of what matters most to us—otherwise known as our core values—we exhibit lower stress, more confident decision-making and problem-solving skills, better attention to health, and more willpower to persist at difficult tasks. We have the ability to act more assertively, communicate with more compassion, and make wiser career and work choices;