Values

Values

Is Happiness in your top 5 Values? If you want to be happy you need to value happiness in your life and like anything else you need to practice techniques for developing and maintaining happiness.

Do you know what your values are? If you do are they helping you achieve what you want in life and do they support your actions in getting there?

Today we are going to examine the concept of values and in the next few posts look at clarifying and choosing values.

Value is a concept that describes the beliefs of an individual or culture. A set of values may be placed into the notion of a value system. Values are considered subjective and vary across people and cultures. Types of values include ethical/moral values, doctrinal/ideological (political, religious) values, social values, and aesthetic values.

Personal values

Personal values evolve from experiences with the external world and can change over time. Integrity in the application of values refers to its continuity; persons have integrity if they apply their values appropriately regardless of arguments or negative reinforcement from others. Values are applied appropriately when they are applied in the right area. For example, it would be appropriate to apply religious values in times of happiness as well as in times of despair.

Personal values are implicitly related to choice; they guide decisions by allowing for an individual’s choices to be compared to each choice’s associated values.

Personal values developed early in life may be resistant to change though this is disputed. They may be derived from those of particular groups or systems, such as culture, religion, and political party. However, personal values are not universal; one’s genes, family, nation and historical environment determine one’s personal values. This is not to say that the value concepts themselves are not universal, merely that each individual possess a unique conception of them i.e. a personal knowledge of the appropriate values for their own genes, feelings and experience.

Cultural values

Groups, societies, or cultures have values that are largely shared by its members. Members share a culture even if each member’s personal values do not entirely agree with some normative values sanctioned in the culture. This reflects an individual’s ability to synthesize and extract aspects valuable to them from the multiple subcultures they belong to.

If an individual expresses a value that is in serious conflict with their group’s norms, the group’s authority may carry out various ways of stigmatizing or conforming the individual. For example, imprisonment can result from conflict with social norms that have been established as law.

Finding Your Own Personal Values

To help you find your bearings in life one of the most important things to consider is your values. Values are the principles & priorities which help us make decisions on a daily basis. If you truly value honesty, you will choose to be honest in interactions. If you value family strongly, you will make time in your life for family. If growth is a top value for you, you will make decisions which encourage personal development. You must consider what is important to you. Many of our values are handed down to us by important figures in our lives, usually parents and other adults we interact with. Often we have not thought about the values given to us, wether they suit us, wether they are outdated or wether they support us in our lives.

As we continue to mature, other influences such as peers & the media affect our values. With so many influences telling you what to value, how do you know what is really important to you?

It is important to understand that values are not static. They are dynamic, changing as we develop over the course of our lives. What we often do not realize is that we can consciously choose and change our values if necessary.

Once chosen values become one of the guides by which we can make our decisions and for what actions we are going to take as we move towards our goals and dreams.

To Understand how to know what values are really important to us, if they support us  or if they are outdated we must complete a Values Clarification.

Why is Values Clarification Important?

If values affect so many decisions & actions in our lives, it is best that we understand them & that our behavior is in line with our values. Many professionals say that family is their top value. However, many of these same people make very little time for their families. There is a discrepancy between what they profess to value, and their actions. However, if we make an effort to understand our values, it is easier to keep our priorities in the right order & our actions in line with our beliefs. If you sit down & realize that family is important to you, you are most likely to make the time for your family. Values clarification simply refers to any process a person might go through to discover and clarify their values and to bring values and behaviours into alignment.

How to Clarify Your Values

To explore what your core values are and how your value system affects your dreams ask yourself the following questions and write the answers in the spaces:

What do you find yourself doing most often?

How do you spend your spare time?

What do you talk about?

What do you do on your days off?

What offends your sense of justice and what provokes indignation and outrage?

Ask yourself, “If I only had 24 hours left to live, how would I spend them?”

Which of your values are you most proud of?

If you were to choose the values that would help you realize your dream what would they be?

Consider opposing values (honesty vs. white lies) and the situations where they are applicable.

Put yourself on a continuum for different situations.

“Pay attention to what is done not what is said”

Develop conscious awareness of values by training yourself to observe your actions and thoughts.

Look at what you have declared your values to be, is there an overall theme or principle.

Is there a line you would never step over.

You should now have a list of personal values that have been influencing your decisions and actions. Enter the twenty of the possible values and rank them from most to least important for you. If you havent reached or cant think of 20  use the Values List

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

What is your core Value

What is the single most important value I stand for in my life?

In what ways do I demonstrate this?

What value is the core for my reason for being?

What actions have I taken in the past week to show its importance?

How does it fit into living my dream?

Are you true to your most important values.

Make a “Pie Chart” of your top five values and compare it to your calendar. Are you really spending as much

time as you would like on your values?

Remember these are the most important values to you now. They may change in ten minutes or in ten years.

Put this list where you will see it during the coming week.

For each action you take during the day ask if it was living out of your values.

Full Values

A Full Value is one which is truly and entirely held by you. Answering yes to all seven questions defines a full value. When appropriate, an alternative question is seen in the parentheses.

Seven Questions to Identify Full Values

1. Was the value chosen freely (without force or coercion)?

2. Was the value chosen from alternatives (or was it the only choice)?

3. Was the value chosen after considerations of the consequences of this value?

4. Do you cherish the value? In other words, does the value make you happy?

5. Are you willing to publicly affirm that this is a value to hold?

6. Are you acting on the value (or is it just something that is said)?

7. Do you display this value repeatedly and consistently?

My Biggest Question to You

Is Happiness on your list of values?

Is it in the top five?

If it is not then you have to place it on the list and make some time in your life to work at being and sustaining happiness.

As usual have a fantastic day filled with subjective well being.

Nevin

References
Values Clarification – Simon, Howe, & Kirschenbaum(1995)
Turning Points – Goodman (1978)
Teaching Values in College – Morrill (1980)
Colorado State University Leadership and Diversity Programme.
Wikipedia

Photo Credit
Nevin Taylor