Feeling lost, directionless, empty and unhappy are symptoms of not living a life aligned with your values.
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Values are often misrepresented as morals or ethics, when really, at the heart of it they are core things that are important to us. So important they form the cornerstone our integrity, especially to integrity self. Values drive our decisions, actions, rituals and traditions. They create a foundation for our lives so that we’re acting in alignment with the things that are truly important to us.
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Because of the way values influence our decisions, values create direction. For example, having a value of community could create the drive for someone to participate in a community event. Having ‘family’ values means that you place an emphasis on your family so you’d probably spend a lot of quality time with them. Having values around health would probably mean you’d skip that extra piece of cake and go for a walk.
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And while all this sounds pretty straightforward, things can go amiss when the values we’re living by aren’t actually the ones that are important to us.
See, we don’t always arrive at our own values. Sometimes we have inherited values from our families and from society or culture. And these don’t always reflect the real ‘us’. So you might have taken on board your parent’s values of having ‘nice’ things which drives you to consume. This is great if it works for you. But if you like a simple life with an emphasis on family, the drive to acquire nice things or keep things nice could be taking you away from what you truly love and value: Your family.
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Having values that we aren’t living by creates disharmony in our lives. We’re saying we value our family but instead of spending time with the kids we’re on Facebook and emails and chatting on the phone. Or we value self-care but don’t actually create the time for it to happen.
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Knowing what your values are and living them creates harmony and happiness that extends through all facets of your life. Knowing your values and living them creates direction. Values support your decision-making when you ask yourself ‘Is this aligned with my values?’
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To determine the values that are important to you and begin to live them try these simple steps:
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Write another list of values that are important to you. Add as many values as you can think of. If you’re not sure where to start you can print a list from Google and cross off the ones that don’t suit you and go from there.
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Looking over your list identify your top 5-7. The values that really sit at the core, the ones that are perhaps non-negotiable.
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Have a look at how you actually live your life and write another list of the values that drive those actions.
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Compare your lists noting values that are on both lists, values that are important to you that you aren’t acting on and values you are acting on that aren’t important to you.
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See where you can change your actions to reflect your actual values. You might like to do this as a brainstorm or mind map around each of your core values.
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Consider the values you were living by that aren’t reflected in your core values and ask yourself how these could change to reflect your core values.
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Start implementing!