Values Clarification Exercise: Step 2.

Now that you have your list, which we'll call list #1, you're ready to move on.

Take a new piece of paper, or use the back of the one you've used already. On the new paper, you're going to make a new list, which we'll call list #2.

I'd suggest a new sheet of paper so you don't have to be flipping the paper over and over.

Or, if you use the back of the sheet list #1 is written on, you can't see the first list which might be an advantage.

But it doesn't amount to much of a mountain which ever molehill you work from.

In list #2, we're going to be ranking the goals from list #1 from most important to least important.

Do it any way you want, but my favorite way of doing this is to write the most important goal from list #1 on the first line of the new sheet of paper, then cross it off the list #1. The advantage I see in my way of doing it is that I have to think about each goal as I rank it.

Then, of those left in list #1, write the least important at the bottom of the list #2 and cross it off list #1.

Next, of those that are left on list #1, write the most important one in list #2 just under the most important one you've already written down. Cross off this goal from list #1. Then take the least important of those left on list #1 and write it just above the least important one you have already written on list #2 and cross it off list 1.

Keep going in this way until you have all the goals from list #1 crossed off and a ranked list in list #2. I think you see my drift. You'll have a list of goals in list #2 which are ranked from most to least important. Spend some time until you're sure you're list is sound.

If there are two that look very similar, don't be reluctant to combine them. For example, if you have one goal that says "financial health" and another one that says, "a sound bottom line," you really have the same goal looked at two different ways so feel free make them one.

Also, make sure each statement contains only one goal. For example, if one of your goals is "to be financially and physically healthy," you really have two goals, and feel free to separate them.

But do what works for you, not what I say to do.

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