Know What’s Important: 3 questions to clarify your values
We’ve all felt lost at some moment in our life. You know the feeling–maybe everyone is asking about your future plans, and you have an answer that you’ve rehearsed that you know people want to hear, so you say that, but you don’t really mean it. Or maybe you find yourself snubbing an old friend to impress some newer, more sparkly friends at school. Or maybe you just feel like you’re going through the motions of your day, just drifting along without any sense of why you’re doing anything you’re doing.
Let me just start by saying: There is zero judgment here! I have been there. It is somewhere on the spectrum of blah to absolutely awful to feel like you’ve lost yourself. It can be a feeling of intense loneliness when we feel disconnected from ourselves. It sucks! I know.
Allow me to introduce you to your new favorite thing: Values clarification.
(What is she talking about? That sounds so unhelpful! ...I know, I know. Stick with me.)
Ask yourself:
What kind of person do you want to be?
How do you want to walk through the world?
What do you want your life to stand for?
These might sound like overwhelming questions to start with in therapy–and they are! BUT clarifying your values is a critical step towards taking action in your life that makes you feel steady, purposeful, and more like the best version of you.
Values are different from goals, which can make them tricky to articulate. We’re so used to thinking about life in terms of what we want to achieve, rather than how we want to be.
Maybe it’s your goal to be in a relationship. Okay, great! I’m not going to talk you out of it. But what happens when you are in that relationship and you find yourself yelling at your partner, or tolerating their bad treatment of you? Is that relationship making you feel like the vibrant, valuable person you know in your heart that you are?
If you’ve already done the work to identify the values that are underneath your goal, it’s easier to know what to do in difficult moments. If underneath the goal of “being in a relationship” are your values of: giving and receiving kindness, feeling supported and offering that support to another person, or practicing honest communication–you’re so much more likely to make a choice within that relationship that serves you.
The process is not quick. It is not easy. It requires really thinking about who you want to be. It requires honesty and vulnerability. You are absolutely capable of this work.
Values clarification asks us: What is the action that you want to take in your life that will make you feel the most like the person you want to be? What is the choice you want to commit to making, over and over, day in and day out, when you are faced with all of life’s various challenges? Taking this action (eg: communicating honestly, practicing self-love, working hard, offering respect) is the choice you can commit to as you live out your values.