I asked my mother a question. “How did you know how to bring up children? I say this will all humility, mum, because I’m amazing, but I can’t take any credit whatsoever. I can only think to blame the parents. How did you figure things out?”
Either I was short of cash of wanted a piece of chocolate, but I got an answer that has stayed with me all these years and is worth more than either. After smirking she replied, “I guess we just instilled the values we thought were important and then hoped for the best.”
I heard that answer around the same time I was reading one of Tony Robbins’ books – ‘Unlimited Power,’ or ‘Awaken the Giant Within.’ He had also spoken about values, and the importance of knowing our own. With my mother’s words rising in my ears I went about my journey of self-discovery.
On Post-it notes I wrote out anything I thought was important to me: family, friendships, freedom, money, honesty, kindness, learning, wisdom, health, commitment, consistency, balance, peace, meditation, animals, adaptability, creativity, logical thinking, lateral thinking, compassion… the list went on. I think there were over 80 notes.
(I wish I had Nir Eyal’s article on values at the time because it would have made the next part of the process easier.)
I took the Post-it notes and played them off against one another: honesty vs family, freedom vs comparison, health vs creativity, honesty vs creativity, animals vs mediation, animals vs honesty. I would imagine a range of scenarios where the two values might come into competition with one another, I’d chew over my emotions as I imagined each winning out, and settled on the one that was most important to me for that scenario. Honesty might win in some scenarios but lose others. The more important notes would slowly rise to the top of the stack.
It’s not a clear cut exercise, there were no absolutes, but the longer I played, the clearer the picture became. Certain values kept rising to the top while others were left by the wayside. I went into this exercise with the goal of understanding my own values but a wonderful by-product also emerged: easier decision making.
When you understand your values – and this goes deeper than simply knowing what they are – you begin to see your decisions in terms of the values they represent.
- Should I stay in a relationship that is not working as well as I think it should right now, because loyalty is important to me, or should I risk ending it because the freedom I value is not something I think this relationship can offer me?
- Should I give my friend this bad news, because honesty is important to me, or should I keep quiet because they are in a vulnerable place right now and I value compassion, especially for those I care about?
There are no easy answers. These are not easy questions, and we don’t always get it right, especially if we’re sparing ourselves pain. In the past I have run on policy of brutal honesty because to live otherwise made me intensely uncomfortable. This wasn’t a decision based on values, it was about pain – mine. I’m still too honest, but I hope I’m less brutal, and that I’m correctly motivated. I only know that when my head and heart are clear, grounded, and aligned, decisions are easier (not easy, but easier).
In Nir Eyal’s article he defines values as those things that cannot be taken away from us, and distinguishes them from those things we value. E.g. we can be honest regardless of our circumstances, so honesty is a value. But our freedom can be taken away so that is not a value, although might be something we value. If I had Nir’s article all those years ago items such as meditation and animals, which fall into neither category, wouldn’t even have made it onto my list. I guess they fell out of consideration anyway as I worked through the exercise, but it would have been nice to have the head start.
As with many things in life, the process gave me more than the results themselves. I have a good sense of my values now, but I have a better sense of what I do not value, of the range of scenarios where values may come into conflict and how I might approach them. I also gained a better understanding why I value what I do: money gives me freedom, health means I can be there for others, honesty means I don’t have to have such a good memory, etc.
It wasn’t a quick exercise. I played with those Post-it notes for weeks as new scenarios came to mind, as I looked for new conflicts that may or may not manifest. The process wasn’t quick, but it was worthwhile.
