Living a Value Based Life

One of the hardest parts of life is finding direction.

As a kid I thought "I'll know what I want to do when I get to high school."

As a teenager, I thought "I'll know what I want to do when I get to study things in college."

In college I thought, "Once I have money and a job, I'll know what I want."

When I was in my early 20s, I thought "Once I have some more life experience, I'll know what I want to do and where I'm going."

As I've continued aging (which never seems to stop?), I discussed this with people decades older than me, I realized that the search for meaning never stops, and the search is the key component of life.

It wasn't until I started going to therapy and discussing this lack of direction that I learned about value-led living. Basically, a way to discover what TYPE of life you want to live, rather than knowing the exact purpose of your life.

What is a Value?

Values are ways of living. The characteristics of how you act; how you treat others, how you treat yourself, and what you might consider when making a difficult decision.

Dr. Russ Harris, author of The Happiness Trap defines a value as: desired qualities of action: how you want to behave; how you want to treat yourself, others, and the world around you.

If you imagine life as a treasure hunt, think of values as your guiding star. You don't know exactly where you're going, but you know the general direction.

You're probably thinking something like

Okay, cool, well what are values that I can choose as my directions?

While exact values vary, most experts agree that there somewhere between 75-100 values that can make up life. For example:

• Kindness

• Adventure

• Risk

• Romance

• Love

• Family

• Wealth

And 70+ more. The exact number doesn't exactly matter, as it's more a guiding set. Taking the time to figure out which are the the most crucial to who you are or who you want to be can really give you peace in knowing that you are living true to yourself.

Sounds great, doesn't it?

What words on your gravestone would you want to be remembered by?

What ISN'T a Value

Mainly, goals. Values are not goals. Goals are things you want to accomplish. Values are ways you want to live.

You cannot achieve a value.

A value is an ongoing way of living and acting. A goal is a definite "thing" you do.

If a goal is "Climb a mountain"

A value is staying healthy to be able to climb a mountain.

Identifying Your Core Values

Taking a list of 90 words and narrowing it down to 3-7 core values might sound overwhelming.

The 5 domains of life. Credit: positivepsychology.com

To start, begin by grouping these values into "Life Domains." Many therapists will do this activity with physical cards to help stay organized. Most experts agree that there are really 5 main domains that make up an individual:

• Spirituality

• Family

• Work

• Community

• Health

From here, you sort the values into groups that are:

• Not Important

• Important

• Very Important / Core Values

Sounds easy, right?

You'd be surprised.

In my own experience, I felt a hard pressure to say that values like "World Peace" were not "core values" as it felt wrong. However, through discussion I realized that "world peace" was not something I ever considered in my decision making. It is something I hope we can achieve, but in reality, is not a core value for me that impacts how I live my life.

Once you've identified 3-7 core values, you will begin to look at your life differently. And for those wondering, yes, you need to stay limited to 3-7. Have you ever scrolled Netflix and not decided on a movie because there were so many options? Now imagine living a life where you had 90 different values to choose from for your behavior. You'd be paralyzed!

An activity that may prove useful:

Imagine you have passed on from this world. Your grandkids are walking through the cemetery and see your gravestone. What words or phrase would you want on your gravestone to be remembered by?

How to Use Your Values

Remember, values are your north star. They are qualities of how you want to act.

Let's say my core values are Kindness, Love, and Humor.

I've had a hard day. I come home, and a friend calls me, sobbing. I'm not in a patient mood. I'm actually pretty annoyed that they're coming to me.

Taking a deep breath, I see my values saved on my phone's lock screen. They act as a reminder of the kind of person I want to be remembered as.

Kind, Loving, and wanting to find the humor in life.

This helps reframe how I treat my friend, even on the worst of days.

When you feel stuck on a decision, rather than asking what the "best" decision is, you can ask "What would a person who values X,Y,Z do?"

Simply knowing what your values are gives you the power to live more peacefully in hard decisions, even when the path is unclear.

I've Identified My Values, But I Don't Feel Different

Great! Identifying what kind of person you want to be is critical, but remember, values are ongoing. Simply identifying them is not a magic bullet.

Now that you have your core values, it can be helpful to track how well your actions align with them.

This is something we are building in SteadyMind -- quick and easy journal prompts to help you capture and visualize how your actions fit into your core values. As I have stated, I started building SteadyMind as a tool to be able to see these trends easily without having to flip through journal pages so much. So while I am a huge fan of traditional journals and notebooks, I thought it was worth going digital to more easily visualize!

Please find what works for you!

Over time, you may notice a few things:

1) That your actions are aligned. Great! This means you are living true to who you want to be! I'm willing to bet that this leads to feeling more confident and less anxious.

2) Your actions tend to fall into other categories of values. If this is the case, it might mean you should redo the value sort activity. It's possible your identified core values are not the ones you truly believe and act on.

It could also be eye-opening that you are not living true to yourself. Maybe it helps you realize you're acting based on other people's values rather than your own.

Remember, information is not good or bad. It is just data to help you know yourself better!