Three Monthly Values for a Growth Mindset

A Ritual of Reflection, Growth, and Living with Intention - By Lucy Perkins

Reading time: 4 minutes

I can’t pinpoint the specific moment I began this ritual but, perhaps a year ago, I decided to select three words that signified my values for that month. I wrote them out on a plain piece of A4, stretching out from the centrally placed month, alike petals blossoming from a flower bud, and stuck it up on my wall. Positioned in my daily eye-line. A reminder before sleep. A reassurance when I woke. A nudge before I left the house. An anchor point.

Values to live by and focus my energy and attention onto when I felt out of alignment, confused, at risk of emotionally numbing, loosing motivation, overwhelmed, triggered. This practice has become a monthly ritual. I am not strict or overly disciplined about what date of the month I set these three values. But instinctively, I take down the previous dedication and replace it with my updated choices.

At first, I would commit a significant amount of time trying to select three words or phrases for this moral mindmap each month. I would struggle to distil my thoughts, emotions and intentions. It took a very conscious practice. Once I selected three values that resonated, I would begin to adorn them with action points, people, places and hobbies that would ensure I live by such selections. I enjoyed this detailed process of fleshing out the values for many subsequent months.

It strengthened my self-trust. My commitment to a growth mindset. To setting, pursuing and achieving certain goals. To prioritising certain people. To maintaining a lifestyle that was centred around focal points, which felt self-guided and self-maintained.

This month, and the most recent months, I have written down my three values with ease. I haven’t felt inclined to flesh out the values with action points or strategies. It feels as if I have built an inner knowing. A compass. A resilience. An awareness of how to live by such choices in my daily habits, interactions, reactions and intentions.

Previous months have included values such as ‘Freedom’, ‘Joy’, ‘Wholeness’, ‘Fun’, ‘Home’, ‘Determination’, ‘Honesty’. These signify a process and journey towards where I currently am proud to be. I can reflect back and see the growth. The processing.

The decision making. The hardship. The acceptance. The letting go. The inviting in. The healing. The blossoming self-awareness, self-care and self-trust. To receiving support, encouragement, love, warmth and connection.

My current November choices are ‘Abundance’, ‘Rest’ and ‘Peace’. These signify deeply sentimental and thoughtful values for me. I woke and I knew it in my bones that those were the values I wanted to embody. In my life today and for the upcoming tomorrows. Until I feel called by another selection. These past, present and future values feed into each other and strengthen each other. Allow a blossoming. A cross-pollination. This practice has created a greater clarity in where I have been, where I am, and where I want to move towards.

I have personal and professional ambitions, ideas and dreams that I know I can gradually step towards. I know I can create a life right now that contains more abundance, peace and rest because I am choosing that for myself. I am more intentional about living by these values because I have repeatedly dedicated myself to this ritual.

The three values now reveal themselves to me clearly and fully. I am learning, month by month, how to embody them. I feel encouraged and excited for what is revealed to me next month. What about you?