Thursday Thought - Values

So welcome to this week's Thursday's Thought where I've been thinking about values. 
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To me values are at the very core of where I start with my clients and in any of my programs. But often people come to me not having any idea of what their values are. Or in fact perhaps what values are.

What are values?
Put very simply values are what is important to you. 

They have to come from our fundamental beliefs of how to live life and they affect our decision-making, the actions we take, how we prioritise. It's different for everybody. There's not a universal right or wrong. 

One person's values might be more on appearance and you can see that in the way they dress, in their house, in the car they have. Whereas another person might not put any value on that at all. 

Or one person might want to live in the city another person want to be surrounded by country or more rurally. 

None of those are right or wrong it's just a difference between us. 
So the reason knowing our values is important is because there can be a dissatisfaction when our values aren't aligned with our actions. Instinctively we know, because if something doesn't feel right, there's an uneasy feeling, then it's because it's not aligned with what your core values are. 

An example of this could be if one of your core values is family time and yet you're working 70 hours a week, then there's a misalignment there. But if you're higher-valued core value is to have a successful business, (I'll look at what success means in another blog) but then you might not work mind working 70 hours, that feels quite natural to you that is fulfilling your value. 
That is a few examples of differences in values but they can cause disagreements. 
If in a relationship two people have different values and that's coming from a fundamental belief, as you can tell, that can cause some disagreements. So knowing your own values is really core but also knowing other people's, perhaps that you're in a relationship with, to be able to understand that and see each other's perspective is also really relevant. 

The thing that a lot of us might get drawn into if we're not following or understanding what our values are is that we end up living other people's quite easily. Whether that's your partner, your family, just society and media or your boss. We can end up getting drawn into doing something we don't want to do and it's only when we step back and feel why that's uneasy you'll realize it's because it's not aligned with your values. 

If learning more about your values is something that's of interest to you and you want to explore a bit further I have got a free download on my website and part of it, the three steps to well-being, is based on values or being able to identify what your values are. So click here and you can head over and get that if you want to explore it further.

Anna,
Owner of Pura Vida Living,
A wellbeing company with the mission to keep well-being simple and accessible to everybody. 
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