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What do you do when you feel that you are not living life fully in line with your values?
We know that this is important; that we cannot be wholly happy and satisfied with our lives if we do not live according to our values. Sure, there will be times when you must choose to prioritize one of your values over another, but the general trend has to be one of concordance – in other words, your daily life should line up with your values.
We have already explored what our values are and why it is important to identify your values and live a life in harmony with them, but what happens when you discover that it’s not all tuneful and melodious? What happens if you feel a clashing imbalance? Or even a gentle disagreement? Well, one thing’s for certain – you will know about it. Your gut instinct will make it clear.
Occasionally, it may take you a little time to realize that this is the problem. That the feeling you can’t quite put a name to is your values giving you a gentle prod. People often talk about not feeling like themselves, not feeling ‘right’, feeling like they’ve lost their ‘mojo’, or just feeling plain ‘hmmph’. Well, my friends, there is good news! There is something that can be done…… read on…..
One of the most illuminating things to examine is how you use your time. We all have 168 hours in the week, yet some people appear to be more fulfilled than others. Why is this?
A good place to start in examining how you use your time is to watch the fabulous TED Talk by Laura Vanderkam on How to Gain Control of Your Free Time. It’s just shy of 12 minutes long and will add real value to the way that you approach time.
The overriding message is to ensure that you spend your time on the things that matter the most to you and to let go of those things that you don’t value.
For those who are feeling particularly brave, take notes every day of what you spend your time on and review it at the end of the week. How do you feel? Are you satisfied that you are using your time wisely and living by those things which are most important to you?
It’s nothing new – we all know that social media is one of the biggest time thieves. Lots of people report that it negatively impacts on their wellbeing. How many of us have looked in detail at our own personal usage of social media? Be honest with yourself. Sure, we may limit what the kids use, but do we hold ourselves to account in the same way?
Most smartphones now have a screen time tracker on them – at the very least, you can compare your usage week on week. For those who want to go a stage further, you can even limit the time that you spend on certain apps, your overall screen time and set downtime when only calls and apps you choose to allow will work.
Start With The End and Work Backwards
In her TED talk, Laura Vanderkam talks about the importance of identifying personal goals and uses the analogy of annual appraisal to facilitate this. Professor Steve Peters in his amazing book The Chimp Paradox approaches this in an alternative way to determine what he calls your own ‘life force’. In this exercise he asks you to imagine that you are on your deathbed with one minute of life remaining; your favorite grandchild walks into the room and asks for some advice about what they should do with their life. You have only one minute to answer this question. What would you say?
The idea behind this is that you will identify the things that you think are most important in how to live life, what is most significant to you in securing meaning and a sense of fulfillment. The overriding notion is that the advice and guidance are actually for you and that you should listen to this.
Identify some Life Goals
Both of these strategies are useful in identifying some life goals. For many of us, stating very specific life goals for the next 30-50 years might be too much. However, we can usually identify some general themes that we think are important. It is possible to set some goals for what you want to achieve in the next six months. This is a great strategy to help you focus your energies on ensuring that you live a life that follows your values. Every time you are asked to do something that you are unsure about check if it matches your goals. If the answer is a resounding ‘no’ then don’t do it.
This is your opportunity to filter out the things that you ‘should do’ but don’t want to. It may take a bit of practice but some simple strategic life decisions can have a significant impact on your life. You can even have a bit of ‘spring clean’. Rid your life of those things that constantly make you feel guilty, or like a failure but, honestly, are just not that important to you. This can be utterly liberating.
Want to take this one step further? You can list your values on a sheet of paper and score them out of 10 – with a 10 meaning that they are perfectly met. For those that don’t score highly ask yourself what you need to do to move them more towards the 10.
Job Evaluation
For many people, job satisfaction can often be at the heart of values conflict. If this applies to you, don’t be passive and simply accept this. Instead, put yourself in an active position and see what can be done. Try and work out specifically what the issue is. List things on a sheet of paper. Try to craft a couple of sentences that sum up how you feel. What does this mean? Will a conversation with your direct supervisor to consider some adjustment to your role be enough? Or, do you need to look for a different position in the same company or maybe even an entirely new post altogether?
All too often, employees don’t address these feelings of discontent with their bosses. Granted, it’s not a productive use of anyone’s time to simply ‘moan’ about things, but if you approach the situation with a productive outlook and a desire to find a solution, most managers will be highly receptive. At the end of the day, it’s far more cost-effective for companies to retain, nurture, and develop great employees than having to go out and find new people.
Happy at Home
Every one of us has the right to be happy and fulfilled at home. It’s our sanctuary. However, amidst our busy lives, it’s all too easy for the calm to be overpowered by a deluge of cleaning, washing, ironing, paying the bills, personal administration, sorting out the kids, looking after elderly relatives … blah, blah, blah – the list is endless!
DO you feel that your sanctuary at home has been compromised and is not enabling you to live intentionally? if the answer is yes, then it’s time to do something about it.
For starters, have a word with your loved ones – tell them how you feel. Be specific. Review the distribution of responsibilities between the adults. Can these be revised a little to give you the time that you need? Explore what can change. Devise a new schedule of household jobs and assign them differently. Give more things to the kids to do.
The principle behind this is founded on equality. It’s about ensuring that everyone plays their part so that everyone can have the time to do the things that are important to them.
Random Acts of Kindness
In his utterly inspirational 2012 TED talk entitled The Happy Secret to Better Work, Shawn Achor explores (in 12 minutes) the science of happiness and several habits that, if practiced regularly, will retrain your brain to become more positive. One of the key strategies he attributes to creating the ‘happiness advantage’ is performing random acts of kindness. Wikipedia describes random acts of kindness as “a non-premeditated, inconsistent action designed to offer kindness towards the outside world” – in other words, doing something lovely for someone you don’t know to make the world a better place.
The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation has some amazing resources to inspire you, including this article here that lists over 50 things that you could do. You can even apply to become a RAKtivist® as someone who leads by example in spreading kindness!
Harnessing this strategy is a great way to live your values. Spend a little time thinking about the things that you might do for a stranger that embody and radiate your values. Then do them! The amazing feeling you get paying for someone’s coffee, putting a coin in a meter, emailing someone that inspires you (the list of opportunities is endless) will brighten your day and, more importantly, theirs.
JFDI
I was introduced to the concept of JFDI by my wonderful late mother-in-law. JFDI – Just Freakin’ Do It (there is a slightly more vulgar version of this!) – is a fantastic and liberating concept.
Life is short. We must LIVE it. After all, We don’t know what’s around the corner. We spend too much time living by the constraints of ‘should’ and ‘can’t’.
Sometimes we all just need to JFDI! What’s the worst that can happen?!
How many of us never follow our dreams and live out our values because we might fail? Do not allow yourself to give in to your fears. When all is said and done, it’s better to regret something that you did than something that you didn’t.
Summary
Living out your values should be a daily practice. It has the ability to affect so much in your life, at home, at work, and in your daily interactions with strangers. Live a life that reflects your values in your ordinary, everyday life – because, at the end of your life, you don’t want to be burdened with regrets about how you lived.
Has This Resonated With You? We’d love to hear from you….”
What action are you going to take as a result of reading this article? Let us know your thoughts below. Remember. Your observations may inspire someone else who needs help to act.
This was so helpful, to me and my family.
We’re going to try and get a schedualed going for the jobs in the household, to make it easier on my self so we can spend more family time together.
I’m loving all these Blogs there so helpful, Can’t wait for the next!
That’s great to hear Jane! Little things can make a huge difference. Everyone in the family needs the time to make sure that they can live their life according to their own values. Sometimes we need to make time for this! 🙂
Thank you, Holly. I really enjoyed reading this and could not fault it in any way. (Not that I would even think about doing so)! There is one thing I find uncomfortable, though, in the general field of talking about values: it’s the feeling that however worthy we might believe our values are, it’s always possible that they might come into conflict with the values of others. At the extreme level, we only have to think about the atrocities committed by say, jihadists at one extreme and white supremacists at the other. Of course, we can say that the perpetrators of such atrocities have been brainwashed into following ‘warped ideologies’ – which have no place in any discussion about ‘values’. But there are many who would claim that such ideologies are firmly and sincerely believed in. Anyway – that’s just food for thought.
I loved the discussion about RAOK, by the way. I’m implementing that straight away!
Sorry to have been slow to contribute to The Rediscovery of Me; I’m afraid I’m a bit of a procrastinator! Aren’t we all ….. sometimes! (See earlier discussions in this forum). Thanks again.
Hi John – thanks so much for your comment. It would be absolutely fine for you to be critical! I would appreciate the feedback! 🙂
This is the thing about values, they are totally personal and we cannot control the values of others. We are all imbued with a sense of our past experiences and this undoubtedly influences our values. In being aware of our own values we can at least appreciate and understand why we may have disagreement and conflict with others. I do think it’s important to highlight that they do, however, remain our responsibility and that we are all held to account for any actions we take as a result of them.
I’m glad that you are implementing the RAOK – do let us know what you did!
Keep the comments coming! x