The Power of Personal Values

Posted on December 13, 2017 by Dr Larry Cohen, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

If we are to find true happiness, it is essential that we inventory and live in congruence with our personal values. When one strays from one’s values and behaves badly, negative feelings almost always result. Negative feelings about our self, and how we see our self (in basic terms, as a good person or as a bad person), will result, and negatively affect our lives. For example, if loyalty is one of your core values, when you gossip or say negative things about a friend, you are likely to feel badly about yourself. You are not being loyal, which is one of your core values. If you are not living your life with integrity and behaving in accord with your own values, you will experience unhappiness, anxiety, and discontent. To find happiness, one must inventory and be fully aware of one’s core values, and one must live in congruence with them.

Living in accordance with your values will impact your life enormously. It will assist you maintain feelings of positive self-worth, and will strengthen your relationships. Over time, living a life of integrity – a life driven by your values – will lead to personal power and increased control over your life. There are, of course, many life circumstances that are completely out of our control (such as the behavior of others), but making the choice to live in accordance with your core values, and behaving as such, provides the power to better control your own life.

Do A ‘Values’ Inventory

Taking inventory of your values may seem like a straight-forward task. You sit yourself down and write out a list of your core values. Great. Hmmm, ok, I value having a monogamous, lifelong commitment to my spouse. And, I value being kind to others. I also value not letting others down when they turn to me for help. I value honesty. I value taking care of my family. These values are all virtuous – but, have you lived in accordance with them over the course of your lifetime? Have you cheated on a partner at one point? Have you been unkind to others without provocation? Have you been reliable when others have asked for help? Are you always doing your best to take care of your family? I believe a ‘values’ inventory has 3 purposes: 1) to concretely identify (in writing) what you value, 2) to recognize when you have fallen short of living according to your values, and 3) to identify why you fell short.

The purpose of this task is not to suddenly transform you into a saint! The purpose is to promote mindfulness – an awareness of what you do value – so that you can strive to live by your values moving forward. Without awareness, striving to live in accordance with your values wouldn’t be possible. But, your ‘values inventory’ may also identify some conflicting values. To live in congruence with one value, it may be difficult to also live by another. And so it is essential to prioritize your values and put great thought into the consequences of not being able to live in accordance with one value over another. I always suggest that people trust their instincts, and do what they think is right, even under difficult circumstances.

Falling Short

Now that your ‘values’ inventory is complete, let’s look at how you’ve fallen short of your values over your lifetime. This sounds like an impossibility, given how many decisions and actions we take during our lifetime. It is not impossible; this step is about the obvious transgressions. You must identify moments and actions that still haunt you – when you know you did the wrong thing, and you still can’t forgive yourself. I sometimes recall bad things that I did – over 20 years ago – that still make it hard for me to fall asleep some nights. Feelings of guilt, shame, and anxiety over our past negative behaviors is a consequence of not living in accordance with our own values at that time in our life. Yet, feelings of guilt and shame have their purpose – ‘healthy’ guilt and shame acts to prevent us from doing bad things again. ‘Unhealthy’ guilt and shame convinces us that we are bad people – not good people who did bad things. ‘Unhealthy’ guilt and shame has no positive purpose, and should be challenged and resolved. Feelings of ‘healthy’ guilt and shame motivates us to make fewer mistakes, to live life in tune with our personal values – to live a life of integrity.

Identify Your Flaws

Can you identify character flaws that lead to past transgressions? What motivated past bad behavior, or any behavior you are not proud of? Were you motivated by pride? Or greed? Or envy? Take time to identify your flaws, because they are why you fall short of living the life you envision. You need to know what happened in the past and why, if you are to gain the power and peace that comes from living according to your personal values. This information will help you to avoid betraying your values in the future, and to lead to a better life.

Forgive me if you feel I’m preaching the obvious – “live a good life and you shall be rewarded!” My job is to help guide people toward the life they most desire. To arrive, behaving and living in accordance with personal values is an essential, powerful tool. It is often ignored – and some may believe that ‘integrity’ is of no value at all. I guarantee this to be wrong. Time and again, I have witnessed my clients gain great personal strength, depth of character, and strong self-worth, as the result of living with integrity, and in accordance with their personal values.