I’m reading The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One
So as I read through the list of values I felt excitement rise through me, to realise that my life is based around what I value most right now, and that I could have as many different lives as there are combinations of values, and all of them will be the right way to live! Basically, what we value most will drive our thoughts and our experiences and to take us further towards those values. Many people have the same values all their life, while for others their values may change as they achieve milestones in their life. Its not achieving the milestone that then causes a change in direction, but a shift in values.
Also, when we assess ‘what are my values right now’ it helps us to realise why we behave the way we do. Its an incredibly powerful act of self realisation, especially when you have two important values that cause some conflict in your life. Once we know what we value the most and how those values compete with each other, it is possible to design a life which meets all the things most important to us.
Given that we tend to act based on our values, without even realising it, a lot of the time when we get stuck in a rut its because we’re still following a path that was chosen back when we had different values. After I had been self employed and made a mistake that made me lose capital, financial security became an important value for me for a few years and enabled me to make decisions at the time. But those decisions may or may not be right for me now, depending on what is my new set of values.
For example, here is my five most important values ‘right now’ that I selected from Margaret’s list. (Shortly I’ll give you a link to another website that has a list of values so that you can do the same analysis without needing the book).
In no particular order:
- Personal freedom
- Physical health
- Family
- Money
- Self development
So in order to meet my values of money and health I have been working hard in a secure job that I don’t like very much due to doing meaningless and wasteful public service work, but that paid double my previous salary. With the extra money I’ve been buying high quality food to increase my health, but I have felt like my values of personal freedom and self development have been on the backburner, and at the same time I have had a significant crisis in my family over the past year. So in general I have not been meeting the majority of my values and so things have been feeling not right on many levels.
Interestingly enough some sense of organisation towards these values must have been in play without my
awareness when I woke up one morning and decided to start this blog. I want to run online businesses that help me to express my interests in health, self development and personal finance, so that I can start a family and work from home on my online business with my family and simultaneously make money, yet have a free spirit due to being self employed. Wow, looks like I just found a way to express all of my five most important values before I even realised it.
Here is a list of values I found on the internet:
http://www.selfcounseling.com/help/personalsuccess/personalvalues.html
It is not dissimilar to Margaret Lobenstine’s list, although Margaret included health, which I appreciate since I value it very much and might have missed it had it not been on the list.
Try the exercise of looking for your five most important values to you right now. Don’t worry about trying to order them or find only one value, because we don’t live in a vacuum. We can’t pursue one value above all others; and if we could it would make us so one-dimensional. What would it be like to only value money or only value family or only value health and nothing else? Sounds like a sure way to disharmony to me.
Take your time mulling over your five most important values. You may well find that as you think about this, you will start to connect your values with things that you do and don’t do in your life currently, and what you can do to make your life better to meet the needs of the person you are now.
Go do it!
Popularity: 9% [?]
