Your Personal Values: What Are Values and How Do You Live Them?When we live by our personal values, our lives suddenly feel more meaningful and fulfilling. Here are some tips for identifying your personal values so that you can build a life with more happiness.
*This page may include affiliate links; that means I earn from qualifying purchases of products.
After spending the last year researching and writing my new book, Outsmart Your Smartphone: Conscious Tech Habits for Finding Happiness, Balance, and Connection IRL, I've learned that we sometimes go through life without paying much attention. We just move from one thing to the next without considering whether our actions reflect our core values. But when we go through life without following our values, we can lose ourselves and our ability to generate real happiness.
Want to identify your personal values and learn how to live them? Read on. ✓ Before we dive in, we thought you might also be interested in taking our well-being quiz to learn more about your personal well-being. ✓ Or, if you're a well-being entrepreneur or coach, download our Wellness Business Growth eBook to get expert tips, tools, and resources to share with your audience. Are You a Therapist, Coach, or Wellness Entrepreneur?
Grab Our Free eBook to Learn How to
|
When I first did this activity, I discovered that kindness is one of my top values. I was living this value in some ways, with some people, and in some situations, but I had some major gaps. For one, I could be really mean to my husband, criticizing him for the smallest things. I could tell you I acted this way because I was angry or hurt, but these are just rationalizations–excuses that I told myself to justify my behavior. The truth is that living your values is hard, and I wasn’t yet ready to put in the work.
At first, I could still tell myself I was kind when I was being mean, that I was in fact living my values. But one day I realized I was just making excuses, and I didn’t recognize myself anymore. I was not who I wanted to be. It seemed scary and overwhelming to start living my values, but I decided that day that I had to do it. And you can do it too. |
Here's a video on creating a value-driven life
Do A Personal Values Exercise
To start, take a look at the values list you created in the last activity. For each of your most important values, ask yourself 3 sets of questions and record your answers:
Once you’ve identified the external events that trigger you to veer away from your core values, it’s key that you identify why these experiences affect you this way.
Look through all of the people and situations that lead you to stray from your values and ask yourself what thoughts, feelings, or bodily sensations lead you to act differently than you would like to?
The emotions that trigger you may be the same across all situations, or they may be different. So just write down anything you think of that leads you away from your values. These emotions, thoughts, and associated bodily sensations are at the root of what causes us to abandon our values. When we act in a way that’s inconsistent with our values, we are just attempting to regulate or reduce our negative emotions, even if only temporarily.
- Are there any people with whom you have a difficult time living this value? For example, maybe your romantic partner, parent, sibling, coworker, or friend?
- Are there any situations that make it difficult for you to practice this value? Where are you, or what are you doing when you fail to practice these values? For example, maybe you’re at work, at home, out at a bar, on social media, in the car, or at the day care center.
- Is there anything else that makes it difficult for you to live your values? For example, maybe you live your values in the morning but not at night, when in your hometown but not on vacation, or on Monday but not Friday.
Once you’ve identified the external events that trigger you to veer away from your core values, it’s key that you identify why these experiences affect you this way.
Look through all of the people and situations that lead you to stray from your values and ask yourself what thoughts, feelings, or bodily sensations lead you to act differently than you would like to?
The emotions that trigger you may be the same across all situations, or they may be different. So just write down anything you think of that leads you away from your values. These emotions, thoughts, and associated bodily sensations are at the root of what causes us to abandon our values. When we act in a way that’s inconsistent with our values, we are just attempting to regulate or reduce our negative emotions, even if only temporarily.
Identify Value Conflicts
If you’ve been following up this point, you now know which feelings or thoughts lead you away from living your values. To move forward, we need to deal with these uncomfortable thoughts and feelings in new ways. Easier said than done though. Often times the emotions that we’re dealing with arise because our needs are being thwarted. For example, a man may seek out an extra-marital relationship because he doesn’t feel loved, appreciated, or physically attractive to his wife. A woman may gossip about her coworker's poor job performance because she doesn’t feel secure in her job. Or a man may micromanage other people at work because he still feels powerless from when his parents hit him as a child.
Our actions—even the ones we're not proud of—usually make sense when we look at them as attempts to get our needs met. So, if you’re struggling to live your values, you likely have a conflict between living your values and getting your needs met. The way forward? Learn how to get your needs met in new ways—ways that don’t conflict with your values.
To identify any potential value conflicts, take a moment now to reflect on what the upside is when you go against your values. What are you getting out of the actions you take? What positive emotions are you feeling? What needs are being satisfied when you go against your values? Do you feel excited? Safe? Loved?
Now, ask yourself how else you could get these needs met? What might be healthier ways?
For example, the man who cheats on his wife could tell her that he really needs to feel attractive to her. So he suggests that they start sending each other sexy text messages and requests that she refrain from chatting with other men on social media. The woman who feels insecure in her job could take some online courses to make herself more valuable to the company, or she could start researching new jobs online. The man who feels powerless could create and lead an online group for a good cause, helping him gain a sense of power with a more positive outcome.
All of these changes require self-awareness, honesty, and effort, but they are necessary for resolving conflicts between our values and needs.
For me to begin living in alignment with my values, I first stopped being so mean, even when I felt that others deserved it. Living my values felt great, but I quickly discovered that some of my needs were not being met. By being mean to people who hurt my feelings, I was unconsciously telling myself that I didn’t deserve to be treated this way, that I was a person worthy of love, respect, and appreciation. But being a jerk only made people treat me worse.
I found that the only way for me to get past my point of conflict was to learn how to communicate more effectively, so that I could tell people how I would and how I would not allow them to treat me. This is really a weakness of mine, and I still struggle with it today, but the more I love, respect, and appreciate myself by not letting others treat me poorly, the better I feel and the easier it is to both live my values and get my needs met. Now I react to feelings of not being appreciated more effectively—for example—by telling others how I would like to be treated.
Changing your life is never easy…but it's always worth it. Give this activity a shot and I hope you can start living in closer alignment with your values.
Our actions—even the ones we're not proud of—usually make sense when we look at them as attempts to get our needs met. So, if you’re struggling to live your values, you likely have a conflict between living your values and getting your needs met. The way forward? Learn how to get your needs met in new ways—ways that don’t conflict with your values.
To identify any potential value conflicts, take a moment now to reflect on what the upside is when you go against your values. What are you getting out of the actions you take? What positive emotions are you feeling? What needs are being satisfied when you go against your values? Do you feel excited? Safe? Loved?
Now, ask yourself how else you could get these needs met? What might be healthier ways?
For example, the man who cheats on his wife could tell her that he really needs to feel attractive to her. So he suggests that they start sending each other sexy text messages and requests that she refrain from chatting with other men on social media. The woman who feels insecure in her job could take some online courses to make herself more valuable to the company, or she could start researching new jobs online. The man who feels powerless could create and lead an online group for a good cause, helping him gain a sense of power with a more positive outcome.
All of these changes require self-awareness, honesty, and effort, but they are necessary for resolving conflicts between our values and needs.
For me to begin living in alignment with my values, I first stopped being so mean, even when I felt that others deserved it. Living my values felt great, but I quickly discovered that some of my needs were not being met. By being mean to people who hurt my feelings, I was unconsciously telling myself that I didn’t deserve to be treated this way, that I was a person worthy of love, respect, and appreciation. But being a jerk only made people treat me worse.
I found that the only way for me to get past my point of conflict was to learn how to communicate more effectively, so that I could tell people how I would and how I would not allow them to treat me. This is really a weakness of mine, and I still struggle with it today, but the more I love, respect, and appreciate myself by not letting others treat me poorly, the better I feel and the easier it is to both live my values and get my needs met. Now I react to feelings of not being appreciated more effectively—for example—by telling others how I would like to be treated.
Changing your life is never easy…but it's always worth it. Give this activity a shot and I hope you can start living in closer alignment with your values.
Don't Forget to Grab Our Free eBook to Learn How to
Grow Your Wellness Business Exponentially!
Are You a Therapist, Coach, or Wellness Entrepreneur?
Grab Our Free eBook to Learn How to Grow Your Wellness Business Fast!