New Years is a common time to make resolutions and set goals for the new year. But before setting goals for ourselves, it can be helpful to get clear about what our values are. In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, identifying values means identifying what is it that is most important in your life. It means getting clear about what really matters, what you want to stand for in you life, and what kind of person you want to be.
Goals we set for ourselves can sometimes come from self-criticism, shame, rigid rules, or the expectations of others. But when our goals come from our own genuine values, we know what direction we are going in and why. We can find the motivation to continue when things get tough by coming back to the reasons we’re doing something in the first place.
Values are not about rules we’ve learned from our families, religion, society or groups. And they are not about meeting other people’s expectations or getting approval from others. They are about our heart’s deepest longings, what really matters the most to us, and how we want to be living our lives in the world on an ongoing basis.
Being in touch with our values is like having an internal compass. This compass can give us direction and keeps us on track. Being out of touch with our values can cause us to be involved with people, places, or situations that are just not right for us, or to act on goals that are not consistant with who we really are. At any time, in any of the key areas of our lives, we can ask ourselves whether we are living fully by our values or being inconsistent with them
Values lead us to take action, but they are never ultimately achieved. They are more of a direction we choose to move in. If our value is to be a loving and caring person, for example, this is something that is ongoing and not something that can ever completed. When the Dali Lama says that his religion is kindness, kindness is not a goal he will achieve and then move on from. It is an ongoing value from which he lives his life.
Values come from inside, from our deepest places. Like having a favorite color or flavor of ice cream, they don’t need to be explained or justified to anyone else.
Here are examples of a few values that others have come up with:
ADVENTURE: To have new and exciting experiences
ACHIEVEMENT: To have important accomplishments
CARING: To take care of others
CONTRIBUTION: to make a lasting contribution to the world
COMPASSION: To act with caring and concern towards others
FUN: To have plenty of fun
GROWTH: To keep changing and growing
INNER PEACE: To experience inner peace and contentment
JUSTICE: To promote fair and equal treatment for all
LOVING: To express love to others
How To Get In Touch With Your Own Personal Values:
The Eightieth Birthday Exercise
Here is a short exercise designed to help you get in touch with your life values. Find a comfortable place to sit and relax where you will not be interrupted for a few moments. Take a few deep breaths, beginning with a deep and long exhale. Then as you inhale, feel your belly, chest and lungs expand. Slow down.
Imagine an eightieth birthday celebration for yourself. This is an imagination exercise, so don’t try to be realistic. Invite anyone who has ever meant something in your life, living or dead, or even not yet born. And imagine you have lived the life you really wanted to live, fully and completely. At this birthday celebration, three different people will stand up and make speeches about you.
Now, one at a time, imagine three people who you really care about come out and make a very short speech about you – three or four sentences- about what you stand for in life, what you mean to them, and the role you have played in their life. What you would most love to hear them say?
Questions to Help Identify Your Own Personal Values
·What in your life gives you a sense of meaning, purpose and vitality?
· What causes you the most pain in your life? Pain is often a gap between what we care about and what we have. What might that pain tell you about what really matters to you?
·What really matters to you, deep in your heart?
·What personal qualities and strengths do you want to develop?
·If you could wave a magic wand, and you would now have total approval from everyone on the planet, no matter what you did, what kind of life would you want to live?
·If you could wave a magic wand and whatever worries or anxieties you now feel could magically disappear, how would you live your life differently?
·What were your childhood dreams for your future?
·What do you really like to do?
·At the end of your life, looking back, what would it absolutely not be OK that you hadn’t done or experienced
Identifying values can be a very helpful tool in getting clear about what we are about as a person, and we can use that knowledge to help to move us into action. Like a compass, we can refer to our values to check and see whether we are moving in the right direction for ourselves or not.