No doubt you’ve seen, heard or read about many different ways to improve yourself and your life. The media today is inundated with talk shows, books, articles and blogs on how to organize your life or your office, how to be more fit and how to improve your relationships with others.

You may even have taken one of the myriad personality tests to determine what “type” you are, or what’s your style. But did you know that by doing this you have begun the branding process — even if that’s not what you have called it. That is, you have taken the time to think about who you are, what you stand for, what your strengths and weaknesses are, what your interests are and what you feel passionate about. You have begun the self-evaluation process.

In my August column, I wrote about the enormous value in creating a personal brand. Experience has shown me that when people work through the process of personal branding, they ultimately grow their business and fast track their success.

Last month, I asked you to find five words that best describe you and I would like to expand more on that process here. These five words or descriptors will be the starting point in your branding journey.

These personal qualities are the “value-add” that you bring to your clients. They are the qualities that attract others to you; that make others like and trust you and that others see in themselves. These descriptors are based on your core beliefs, which form the basic philosophies of how you live your life, what you’re willing to compromise and what you’re not willing to negotiate.

These are the qualities that you will automatically incorporate into your brand, because that is who you are. And isn’t it good to know who you are? Your core values and your descriptors become the foundation for how you present yourself to the world.

Start today and take the time to determine your core values and beliefs as well as your five descriptors and try to understand how they affect your business. As a bonus you will find that this kind of thorough self-reflection improves your self-awareness. This, along with good dialogue with others, should help you grow your self-confidence, which translates to growing your business.

For those of you who have already done some work in this area, I would like to remind you that self-reflection is an ongoing process and a journey and it is certainly worth revisiting from time to time. In addition, using your core values as cement allows you time to grow, adapt and thrive as you move forward in life.

In order to help you understand how your core values and descriptors work, I’d like to share an example of someone who has determined her core beliefs and established five descriptors that reflect who she is. “Marilyn” is an English- and Spanish-speaking travel professional who determined (with my help) that she proactively wanted to be known as an intelligent, detail-orientated, fun, culturally enriched and worldly travel advisor.

Her proactive target market is like-minded people who have fun exploring the cultures of Spanish destinations. Marilyn thoroughly plans these enriching excursions down to the last detail so that nothing is left to chance and everyone has fun. She often escorts her own groups and as a result makes many new friends and enriches her own life. She also keeps getting repeats and referrals from clients who have thoroughly enjoyed their travel experience.

Marilyn walks the talk in her community, in her network and in her client and colleagues’ circles. Walking the talk means consistently striving to stay congruent with her five descriptors online in her business and social media and offline in person. Marilyn walks her talk with her voice and with confidence because she is in tune with herself and is not trying to be someone else. Her core values align nicely with her five personal branding descriptors. Personally and professionally, Marilyn has taken the time to reflect on her core values and believes in honesty, trust, humor and love. She conducts business with those values in mind.

So, either begin the process now or keep up what you have already begun. I have found that without this inner-thought process, along with candid conversation with your trusted inner-circles, there is a lack of clarity or focus. The personal branding journey is an ongoing process with changes and revisions along the way as you grow and develop. I always like to remind people that personal brands are like good wine: they evolve, develop and mature with time.