In part 1 of this series, engagement: from behavioral avoidance to behavioral activation, you did an assessment of how you’re spending your time and inventory on all the stuff you have been avoiding. Now, to get back into your life you will learn how to go back to your values, fun activities, and your to-dos.
This blog post focuses specifically on getting you back on track by doing what you care about.
“Work on Purpose, Play on Purpose, Rest on Purpose. Do not let yourself or anyone else waste your time.”
Izey Victoria Odiase
Getting mobilized with your values
Values have been the source of inspiration for artists, creators, makers, and almost every single person on Earth who wants to live with meaning, purpose, and intention. “Values” is a word that gets thrown around a great deal these days, and it means different things to different people. Based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and for the purposes of this series, let’s think of values as the response to these key questions:
Are you living the life you want to live?
What sort of person do you want to be?
Are you the relative you want to be?
Are you doing what matters to you as a friend?
Are you treating yourself the way you really, deeply want in your heart?
Before we dive into figuring out your values, a couple of clarifications:
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Values are different from goals
Values are the “why” of what you do, and they’re different from goals. Goals are specific stepping stones along the path leading you in the direction of your values. Goals are actions that are completed and checked off a list. For instance, Rebecca, as a mother, identifies her value as “being caring” and her goals are to 1) prepare a meal for her daughter three times a week, 2) drive her daughter to school twice a week, and 3) attend her daughter’s volleyball games on the weekends. In essence, Rebecca sets her goals and actions in line with her values; her actions may change, but her values don’t.
We are all wired to experience a full range of emotions—that’s our natural makeup—but experiencing one feeling versus another does not mean you’re living your values; you’re just feeling. And our feelings, like waves in the ocean, come and go. You don’t have control of what you feel, but you do have control over how you act and how you want to live your life. Now let me break the news to you: those are also dead goals because, as much you may wish it were true, you don’t have control over what you feel. You simply feel what you feel. But values are not about feeling good. In fact, living your values and doing what matters comes with uncomfortable feelings at times.
For instance, for Joe, being caring with his relatives is a core value; every month he travels for six hours to spend a weekend with his ninety-year-old grandmother who cannot travel, barely recognizes him, and requires assistance at all times. As soon as he arrives, Joe changes her clothing, grooms her, reads her a favorite book, and leaves pictures of her great-grandchildren. Even when she calls him by the wrong name, he holds her hand. Joe feels sad and frustrated, and he believes it is unfair that a woman who raised nine children is slowly dying. Yet even though performing these actions in service of his values makes him uncomfortable, he does them.
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Values are not about avoiding feelings
If your mind says that the outcome you want in life is to feel less pain, to have less intense and fewer stressful emotions like anxiety or sadness, I totally get it. It’s understandable that we don’t want to feel any discomfort because it’s no fun at all. But here’s where this thinking gets tricky. A client told me once that being funny was a very important value for him; when I asked more about it, he said that telling jokes and being funny makes him likable to others and creates a good impression. When asked what would happen if he isn’t funny, he said that he would be worried about not being liked and would even be afraid of people no longer wanting to be friends with him. For my client, acting funny is not a value but emotional escapism. He is avoiding the feeling of being disliked or abandoned by others. Values-based on running away from painful emotions are not actually values, because the actions you do actually take you away from your values.
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Values are not your preferences
There are things that we like, love, and go out of our way to get. For instance, you may love your morning coffee, a sunny day on the beach, or salsa dancing; all those things are nice and fun, and you may want to have a lot of those moments, but those are preferences, not values. Your morning coffee, as tasty as it is, isn’t pointing you in the direction of doing what matters to you; your values do that. Your values are like the arrow on a compass that points the way for you to go.
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Values are not your wishes for others’ behaviors
Sometimes, when having a conversation about values, I hear comments along the lines of “I want to be respected by others.” It’s natural to want to be seen, appreciated, and respected by others, and we certainly deserve it. But, here is the takeaway: we simply do not have control of other people’s reactions, behaviors, and feelings about us. Now that we have gone over a few points about values, I hope you can see that living your values is an actionable task. Taking steps toward what matters to you gives you a new way of being in the world; it is not pain-free, but it means you get to choose how you want to live your life, instead of your emotions choosing for you and dragging you around in the process. The more steps you take toward becoming the person you want to be, the better it gets—and as they say, “What you practice grows.” The next section of this chapter will help you to clarify what matters to you and how you can take steps toward them. 
Identifying your values
Below are two exercises that you can use as a guide to identify your values; feel free to do both of them since they are complementary.
Exercise 1: Identifying your values (part 1)
Grab a piece of paper and write about three different moments when you had a sense of vitality and felt alive, when you were doing what speaks deeply to you, when in that moment life was just perfect. Describe each situation, the person you were with, and what you were doing. Imagine that someone was recording you in those moments—what would they see in the camera? After recalling and writing about these three different memories, try to identify any qualities that stand out to you across all of them. Ask yourself: What was special for me about those moments? How did I feel about myself? What was the quality or way of being I was embracing that made me feel good in those moments? Your answers will point you to your values. Write them down, keeping in mind that your values are verbs. You don’t need to have a shopping list of your values, just a refined list of what you strive to be and stand for in your personal life. As a reference, you can look at this list of values:
For instance, after completing this exercise, Anne came up with the following sweet memories:
Memory 1: When celebrating my daughter’s sixth birthday, I looked at her and felt a strong sense of connection with her and felt how much I wanted to be a constant part of her life in a way that she knows I love her.
Memory 2: On a rainy day, my partner and I were struggling to figure out what to do to entertain ourselves. We flipped channels and didn’t see anything interesting. We thought about eating, but nothing seemed exciting. We decided to walk our dog in our neighborhood and, to my surprise, that was one of sweetest moments we had. It was cold, we were wearing our heavy jackets, but when walking together we remembered the first home we had, how hard we worked for it, how we decorated it, how much we argued about the tile in the bathroom, and how we couldn’t stop smiling when thinking of the bright yellow door we painted in the kitchen. I felt so clear about not needing extravagant or fancy things all the time to enjoy myself and my husband’s company.
Memory 3: I remember a tough conversation I needed to have at work with my sister, who was also my manager, about a salary raise. I couldn’t sleep for days, felt anxious, and asked for advice from any person I could find. In the past, no matter what I asked for, whether it was for something at work, at home, or anywhere, my sister would usually say no. Somehow she still sees me as the youngest kid and doesn’t want me to get away with stuff. Ridiculously, as an adult she still treats me like that. So, I usually don’t bother asking or insisting on what I need. This time, I prepared a draft of what I was going to tell my sister and rehearsed in front of a mirror. I even had a back-up plan if she didn’t raise my salary. On the day of our meeting, I made sure I had my coffee, wore my favorite sweater, and then walked to her office. She was friendly and then asked about my request for revising my salary. In those moments, I felt my body get sweaty all over, and I felt a rush like I wanted to run away, but I stayed and told her that I needed a raise and recited the reasons why. My sister looked at me, didn’t say much while I was talking, and after nodding her head, she said that she would think about it and discuss it. She wanted me to know that no one in my department had received a raise in the last six months. I was prepared for my sister to say something like that, so I took a deep breath, and then asked her when she could give me a response because I needed to make decisions accordingly. For the first time, I didn’t walk away from a conflict, didn’t apologize for asking for what I needed. And even though I didn’t get the raise immediately but instead two months later, I knew I did the right thing for myself. When writing down these three memories and going over them, Anne identified these personal values: being caring, down to earth, and authentic.
Jot down below the values you came up with; when doing so, don’t worry about finding the perfect word or the perfect value, just list the principles that you want to embrace in your life and be remembered for by others. The purpose of this exercise is not to identify the perfect value but to get in touch with what truly matters to you.
Exercise 2: Identifying your values (part 2)
Read the following directions slowly, and then see what you come up with at the end of it. Imagine that you have lived your life the best you could up to this point. Some things went as you wanted them to go, some things were difficult, but here you are today. You planned some things and others just happened. However, things take a dramatic new course for you in this moment: Right now, you’re being notified that you’re going to die in the next twenty-four hours. Yes, that’s right, imagine that you’re going to die within the next twenty-four hours. Suddenly you may start breathing fast and realize you only have a short amount of time to be alive and prepare for your final departure. You might ask yourself: Given how things are right now, what type of person do I want to be? You’re living your last day on earth. You’re running out of time. There is no turning back. This is it. Please reflect on this, and instead of rushing to answer, breathe, and jot down your response.
Now that you have completed two exercises to identify what truly matters to you, let’s move on to acknowledging the life areas that you care about.
Exercise 3: Identifying areas that are important to you
People tend to have strong values in ten general areas of life (Hayes and Smith 2005). Some of these areas will be more important to you than others. Read through the following descriptions of these domains and circle four that are most important to you.
Intimate relationships. What kind of partner do you want to be with your significant other?
Parenting. What is most important to you about parenting your kids?
Friends and social life. How do you want to show up to your friends?
Health. What’s important to you when you think about your health?
Family relationships. What is most important about your relationships with your parents and siblings?
Spirituality or religion. What’s important for you in this area?
Community life and citizenship. How do you want to show up to others in your community?
Work and career. What are the qualities you want to embrace at work and in your career?
Now that you have a sense of your values and the areas of your life that are important to you, write down the four areas and respective values you want to start focusing on and commit to working on as you move forward:
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Going back to Anne, she identified the following values and area:
You will be coming back to this exercise, so be sure to earmark it so you can return to it as you continue reading this series. Here is another thing to keep in mind about values: words about values without any action are like beautiful leaves swept away by the wind. We don’t want your values blown away. Instead, let’s move into identifying specific steps you can take to live those values
Identify actions toward your values
You cannot explore New York by driving the streets of Seattle, right?
The same applies here: You cannot live your values by taking actions in random directions. Rather, you must intentionally choose specific actions, steps, and goals you need to take in the right direction. How do you do it? By answering the three W questions: What, When, and with Whom.
For instance, Anne decided to live her value of being a caring daughter by spending every Saturday with her mom, who is struggling with Alzheimer’s disease. She did this even when her mother didn’t recognize her, or thought Anne was her cousin, or didn’t talk at all. Anne drove two hours every Saturday to spend the day with her mom, even when she thought, She doesn’t even know who I am.” and Does she know what I’m doing? and How did this happen to her? and It’s not fair. In the end, Anne wouldn’t trade those Saturdays for anything.
It’s your turn to identify specific actions that will bring your life into closer alignment with your key values. When thinking of actions and goals, keep in mind the following principles:
– Goals and actions must be concrete and achievable, given your circumstances.
– Goals and actions must be specific, answering who, why, how, where, and for how long.
You can use a worksheet like the one below as an aid in this process. As a starting point, I invite you to choose only four areas from all the ones mentioned above. In the first column, write the area you want to focus on. In the next column, write at least three values for each area. And in the last column, think of a specific action you can do that reflects the key value.
Exercise: Identifying your values-based activities.
The next blog post will focus on other activities that you may have withdrawn from and need to restart to get fully mobilized and back into your life!
