Why do Values Matter? (Part 1) The main benefit of knowing your values is that you will gain tremendous clarity and focus, but ultimately you must use that newfound clarity to make consistent decisions and take committed action. So the whole point of discovering your values is to improve the results you get in those areas that are truly most important to you. Values are priorities that tell you how to spend your time, right here, right now. There are two reasons that priorities are important for our lives. The first reason is that time is our most limited resource; time does not renew itself. Once we spend a day, its gone forever. If we waste that day by investing our time in actions that dont produce the results we want, that loss is permanent. We can earn more money, improve our physical bodies, and repair broken relationships, but we cannot redo yesterday. If we all had infinite time, then values and priorities would be irrelevant. But at least here on earth, we appear to be mortal with limited life spans, and if we value our mortal lives, then its logical to invest them as best we can. Youre free to decide what best means to you. The very idea that some possible permutations of your life appeal to you more than others means that knowing your values will be of great benefit to you. On the other hand, if any life you might live is as good as any other to you (whether prince or pauper, Olympian or obese, saint or sinner), then you can stop reading - you dont need this information. But most people can certainly envision lives that are more preferable to them than others. The second reason priorities matter is that we human beings tend to be fairly inconsistent in how we invest our time and energy. Most of us are easily distracted. Its easy for us to fall into the trap of living by different priorities every day. One day you exercise; the next day you slack off. One day you work productively; the next day youre stricken with a bout of laziness. If we dont consciously use our priorities to stick to a clear and consistent course, well naturally drift off course and shift all over the place. And this kind of living yields poor results. Imagine an airplane that went wherever the wind took it - who knows where it would eventually land? And the flight itself would likely be stressful and uncertain. So for these two reasons - limited time and a typically low index of distraction - consciously knowing and living by our values become extremely important. Values act as our compass to put us back on course every single day, so that day after day, were moving in the direction that takes us closer and closer to our definition of the best life we could possibly live. The best is your own ideal, but generally as you get closer to this ideal, youll enjoy increasingly positive shades of better even if you never reach best. And this makes sense because many results in life exist on a continuum. There are some discrete entities like being married or not married, but your health, financial status, relationship intimacy, and level of happiness are generally continuous, meaning that they can gradually get better or worse. It seems reasonable that more health, happiness, wealth, intimacy, inner peace, love, etc. is better than less. But heres the interesting part: Since our time is limited, and since it takes time to move along the continuum through the various betters, we usually cannot instantly achieve the state of best. We cant land our plane just yet - its still in flight. Moreover, everyone has a different definition of what best means to them. For some people, good health is an absolute must. For others, being compassionate is whats most important. And for each of these values, every person is at a different point along their own continuum. So imagine that there are a bunch of planes in the air, each in a different starting location and each having a different destination airport. You cant then plot the same course to land every plane at its best airport. Each plane requires its own individual course. For a more human example, everyone is in a different state of health right now, and everyone has a different ideal for their best possible health. So the course each person takes from their starting point to their own best state of health will be unique. Because of these individual differences, some of your planes will be much farther from their airports than others. If you want to weigh 150 pounds and you currently weigh 155, this plane is within sight of its airport and is approaching the runway. If you want to become a millionaire and youre flat broke with a low income, that plane is much further away. Because you cant do everything at once, you have to prioritize which planes are most precious to you. You may not be able to land them all within the span of your lifetime because you probably dont know how long your lifetime will be; nor can you be certain how long it will take to land each of these planes. But realize that the closer you get each plane to its airport, the better that area of your life will be. Next month we look at a step-by-step method to create your own personal values hierarchy.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 05:48:04 +0000
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