Uncover what’s most important with a values stocktake
Let’s talk about values.
“What do I want?” “Who do I want to be?”” How do I want to live my life?”
These questions are fundamental to our way of moving through the world. But the answers are not always easy to find. They are not set in stone. They change as our lives do.
Sometimes, life slaps us with reality – death, illness, injury, or even simply the understanding that our ‘success’ does not truly fulfill us.
These moments can prompt us to reconsider and realign.
Take a moment to reflect – when was the last time you took stock of what you really wanted? Not just based on your history or the expectations from yourself or others – but what YOU really want in this season of your life?
Today, we’ll talk about this and I’ll share an exercise that can help you stocktake your values and provide clarity.
Who and how we are (and what we see as important) is a complex tapestry of genetics and environment.
It can be shaped by our families, local communities and culture, and the wider global culture, which is influenced by social media, news outlets and the entertainment industry.
As we grow, we are presented with opportunities to figure out how this – how we – are different from others. Particularly from our family and cultural background.
Adolescence. Young adulthood. Midlife. Later life.
Throughout it all, we learn what helps us thrive. Shine. Glimmer from deep inside.
Values vs virtues
Values are desired qualities of how you want to be, treat others, treat yourself and the world around you.
They are, in essence, the qualities of being that your heart says ‘yes’ to.
Like a compass, they can orient you when you are unsure how to be, act or what to do next.
They are self-defined and come from within you (though they may be influenced by external ideas).
On the other hand, virtues are values that are defined by society, culture or religion as 'accepted values'.
They are not self-defined, they come from outside you – suggestions of ways you ‘should’ act or be in the world. You may feel a sense of duty towards them, or they may be imposed on you. You might be aware that you don’t want to abide by them but feel you have to in order to fit in.
For example, selflessness is a virtue in many religions – where giving more of yourself in the service of others is a prized way of relating and behaving.
However, in current popular culture, self-love is a virtue prioritising oneself before others. The reasoning behind this ideology is that “you can’t give from an empty cup” – when one puts themself first, they have more capacity for others.
However, self-love may involve setting boundaries, saying no, going against the grain and the possibility of being seen as ‘selfish.’
If you live in a culture where selflessness is a virtue, adopting the virtue of self-love goes against this ideology.
That’s why it is important to distinguish between virtues (imposed by others) and values (what you want for yourself).
You may choose to adopt virtues into your values set, or not.
In any case, you are choosing for yourself how you want to be – not how you should be – in your life, relationships and community.
Values are not goals, they are frameworks
Values cannot be ‘achieved’ in the same way goals can.
Goals are actions or things to be done, finalised and ticked off. Goals are things that we ‘do’.
Values are behavioural qualities / ways we ‘be’.
They are how we relate. How we carry ourselves. How we choose to act.
They are how we prioritise what we want to ‘do’, defined by how we want to ‘be’.
There are many moments in life where we need to redefine our values.
It is not uncommon as we grow and change to want to do things differently. To switch things up. To yearn to break free from boxes, molds and endless expectations.
To live our lives in line with how we want to live, not how others tell us we ‘should’.
Commonly, this might be when we achieve society’s idea of ‘success’ and think ‘is this it?’, and realise that the idea of success does not automatically lead to fulfilment.
It’s also common when we are ‘slapped’ by realities of life like death, illness and injury.
These moments can prompt us to take stock and consider “is this actually how I want to live my life?”
At these times, a values stocktake is a way of realigning and considering what is most important to you and what would make your life rich and meaningful.
In these moments, considering our values can also be a really important tool to guide what to do next because we can align our goals with our values.
In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), this is called ‘values guided actions’ and it basically means that you are creating your ‘doing’ actions in line with how you want to ‘be’.
Over the years I have worked on my own values and reflected at different stages.
I have shifted my defined core values from being in alignment with virtues I inherited to a distinct set of my own values.
I have noticed that my values have changed over time and have had to come to terms with when they are in conflict internally or externally. I have realised that values are not stagnant. They change as we change. And it is a lifelong process.
Some of the tricky things that come up when we consider values are:
Values are inherently something we can never fully ‘achieve’ as they are not things to be ‘done’. We can always ‘be more’ of a certain value and depending on your makeup this can be a difficult barrier. Or just another excuse to berate yourself for not achieving a high standard or not being good enough.
We can have different values for different domains of our life (work, relationships, self). When we relate different domain’s values to another we can find we are bringing the parts of ourselves into areas of our life that are not conducive to how we want to be. We might love structure, and order at work, but at home, freedom, adventure and fun.
Values can be in conflict, particularly amongst different parts of us or in the different domains of life. We need to be able to recognise and reconcile these conflicts.
Our values may not match the values of our friends, family, community or colleagues. This can lead to conflict and require significant changes to be made. Which is hard.
If you are feeling lost, at a crossroads, or have a sense of internal or external conflict, values re-definition may be a helpful solution.
This process from ACT is a useful way to approach this:
Find a list of values.
Using this list, create three groups (very important, important, not so important).
Once you have the ‘very important’ list, group them according to themes (that are true for you - they don’t have to make sense for anyone else).
Then pick the value that most defines that group of themes until you have three to five values. These can be your overarching values.
You can repeat this process for different domains of your life (there’s a cool worksheet here) and figure out which domain needs more attention and care.
Once you have your ‘lists’ of values, write them down and put them somewhere you can keep referring to.
Consider the qualities of each value and how that could be demonstrated in ‘actions’
Over the course of a few weeks, add to your values your understanding of what these values are over time.
As a daily practice, you can pick a value and focus on living in alignment with that value for that day.
As you start to deepen your relationship to values, you can orient your life more in the direction of what is most important to you.
ACT is one of the primary modalities I utilise in Mind-Body Therapy. It is a form of cognitive behaviour therapy that incorporates present moment awareness and values guided actions.
I’ll commonly use this exercise if you aren’t sure which way to go or what is most important to you.
When we specifically focus on values and ways of being over time, we can deepen from exploration into embodiment – how you demonstrate your values in your body language, tone of voice and way of walking around in the world.
You can start to consider the ‘energetic’ quality of these values and how you can show your values through your entire be-ing.
This is also part of my Vitality Medicine program integration period. Where we clarify the values you want to take into the world and practice embodying how these actually look, feel and show up inside you and emanate out into the world.
If you want to chat more, you know where to find me.