Personal Values
Therapist and Life Coach in Voorhees NJ, Cherry Hill NJ, and Marlton NJ (856) 352-5428 Contact NJ Therapy & Life Coaching
If we are to find true happiness, we must take inventory of and live in congruence with our values. When one betrays one’s values, negative feelings almost always result. Negative feelings about yourself and how you see yourself get reinforced when you betray your morals and values. One of our basic emotions is guilt, which is defined as feeling bad about something you’ve done. If loyalty is one of your core values, when you gossip or say negative things about a friend, you are likely to feel guilty and bad about yourself. You are not being loyal, which is one of your core values.
Integrity
If you are not living your life with integrity and behaving in accord with your 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 by your values has an enormous impact on your life. Doing so supports positive self-esteem and strengthens your relationships. Over time, living a life of integrity - a life driven by your values - leads to sustainable personal power and control over one’s life.
Integrity Defined
When you live your life in adherence with your core values, you are living with integrity. Having integrity is an intangible, but people can feel it when they are around you. It is solid ground on which to live. Integrity increases and maintains the depth of your self-worth, solidifies your self-confidence, and provides you with inner strength.
There are life circumstances that are entirely out of our control (such as the behavior of others). Regardless of how others around you behave, you must choose to live by your values and interact with life’s uncontrollable forces with integrity. Strength of conviction, belief in yourself, and an unwavering alignment between your values and your actions will provide you with the energy needed to stay focused on personal happiness and life goals.
Complete a ‘Values’ Inventory
Taking a ‘values’ inventory seems straightforward, but it does require a good amount of personal reflection. Sit down and write out a list of your core values and moral beliefs. You may value being kind to others, speaking up when you disagree, having a lifelong commitment to your spouse, and not letting others down when they need help. You may value honesty and taking care of your family and other people. These are virtuous values.
During your inventory, ask yourself if you have lived by these values over your lifetime. For example, have you cheated on a partner in the past? Have you been unkind to others? Have you been unreliable when others have asked for help? The ‘values’ inventory is essential, and it serves three purposes. 1) to concretely identify (in writing) what you value, 2) to identify the times when you fell short of living up to them, and 3) to understand why you fell short and work to correct it.
The purpose of this inventory is not to look for personal perfection. The purpose is to promote mindfulness and awareness of your inner morals and values. Without awareness, you won’t be able to change your thinking and behaviors. If you are not mindful, countering negative core beliefs by living by your values can be difficult.
Oddly, 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. Therefore, it is essential to prioritize your values and consider the consequences of not being able to live by one value over another. I always suggest that people trust their instincts and do what they think is right, even under the most challenging circumstances.
Falling Short
Now that your values inventory is complete, you must examine how you’ve fallen short of living by them. Consider the vast number of bad choices and mistakes we all make throughout our lifetime. But don’t get overwhelmed. This step focuses on our apparent transgressions and points to a need to fix them.
As painful as it may be, remember past behaviors that may still haunt you. These are the memories that keep you up at night. The purpose of recalling these memories is not to evoke past feelings of shame and guilt without a meaningful purpose.
These memories identify your morals and values, as you know you will never act like that again. What were the morals and values you betrayed in those moments? Add these to your values inventory.
When recalling memories that evoke feelings of guilt and shame, it is essential to understand how to manage these emotions. Guilt is feeling bad about something you did, and shame is when you feel bad about who you are. These emotions can be paralyzing, but I see a clear purpose to them. To learn, and to change.
Toxic guilt and shame are when we carry feelings of guilt and shame with us through life. Over time, toxic guilt and shame corrode and poison us if not resolved. Through positive behavior change, you can gradually let go of the toxic feelings you carry.
Healthy guilt occurs when we learn from our bad behavior and recognize that its purpose is to prevent us from repeating these actions. We know from them that we should work on shedding the guilt, healing from it, and moving forward in our lives in a healthy way.
The healthy way to process feelings of guilt and shame involves using these emotions to motivate us to make fewer mistakes and live true to our morals and values.
Identify Your Flaws
The time has come to face reality. To bring about permanent life change, we must step back and take a gut-wrenching look at the character flaws that led to our past failings. If left unchecked, these flaws can harm those around us and reinforce our negative core beliefs.
When our negative core beliefs are reinforced, our sense of self-worth and self-esteem gets lower and lower. To build self-worth and self-esteem, these flaws must be identified and fixed.
What motivated your bad behavior, or any behavior you are not proud of? Were you motivated by pride? Or greed? Or envy? Take a step back to reflect, and take time to identify the flaws that drove your bad behavior. These flaws are the reason so many of us fail ourselves and others.
They are the reason why we are not living the life we envision for ourselves. Your values inventory will strengthen your spirit and help you avoid betraying your values again and again. You will get where you want to be if your values inventory is completed and you begin making positive life changes.
Live the Life You Choose
As a therapist and life coach, my job is to guide people toward the life they most desire and help them do the work necessary to get there. To arrive, you must live BY your values. To do otherwise is to betray yourself and be unable to live the life you want to live. To have integrity is to live a life that is true to your morals and values.
I have witnessed my clients rise, find personal strength, and do what they must to build feelings of positive self-worth. They choose to make the hard choices, change their behaviors, and decide to make their lives right again—living with integrity and staying true to their beliefs. Seeing people change, find happiness, and live the life they imagined is quite something to witness. I am grateful for my job every day.