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Quick Check: Values Based Action

It’s been a while since the last blog post, and I’m planning on tightening up the time between submissions.  More wisdom is on it’s way.

Everyday provides endless opportunities to live the life we want to live, but we’ve got to paying attention, and be prepared to take advantage when an opportunity presents itself.  With that in mind, I want to provide a decision making strategy that can be applied anywhere and anytime.  When you’re making decisions mindfully (and hopefully most of the time you are), it requires intentional questions and answers in each moment.

  • Where will I choose to focus my attention?
  • What will I say in response to that greeting?
  • What tooth will I brush next?
  • What am I tasting right now?

With all those questions and choices, how can we know which path to follow?  It’s easy to fall into a pattern of looking for the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ path, but that’s an oversimplification and introduces unnecessary judgment.  Instead you can ask, “How will this choice help me move toward my values?” or “What behavior would I be engaging in if I were behaving in alignment with my values?”

Through the course of any day, the more closely we can align our choices and behaviors to our values, the better off we’re going to be.  It minimizes guilt, regret, shame, self-criticism, and judgment.  It maximizes healthy pride, self-efficacy, contentment, and personal growth.  It allows us to live our life based on the things that are most important to us.  If you’re not sure how to define your values, you can take an initial step by downloading and printing this  values clarification worksheet.  Rate all the values on the worksheet as either very important, somewhat important, or not important.  Once you’ve identified all the values that are very important to you, narrow those down to your top ten.

By using your top ten values to make decisions, you’re sure to find yourself on a more fulfilling path in life.

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Why is Happiness So Elusive?

It’s fairly safe to generalize and say that everyone wants to be happy.  Happiness is a comfortable, pleasant emotion.  No one has ever said, “Man, I’ve been happy forever.  It would be nice to have just a few days of sadness.”

So why do so few people seem to genuinely arrive at this elusive happy place?  There are many reasons, but most of them are unknown to the layperson, and even after explaining the problems, most people won’t do what it actually takes to cultivate happiness.

First problem is that we talk about happiness as if it is a permanent state of being rather than the fleeting emotional experience that it actually is.  It’s discussed as an end goal rather than a temporary state of being.  If true happiness is the persistent absence of all uncomfortable emotions…it becomes an impossible state to reach.  This problem creates a dilemma where the pursuit of happiness results in perpetual failure, effectively reducing happiness.  Ouch!

Another problem is that our minds have the capacity to predict how we’ll feel in a particular situation.  All the “If I owned…”  “If I could just…” “If they would only…” scenarios get played out in our heads and make it easy to assume that we could be happy give the right circumstances.  Unfortunately, we consistently overvalue our predictions, and tend to think things will make us happier than they actually do.  This over-reliance on faulty prediction sets us up to feel disappointed rather than happy.  Ouch again!

On top of that, we have become a culture full of choices and information.  That becomes problematic when we’re give the opportunity to evaluate options and make choices.  Most proper evaluations examine both sides of each option, highlight the pros and cons of all potential choices.   While this analysis can ensure wise and responsible choices, it can also undermine happiness.  By spending the time to create the pros and cons list, we highlight the negative aspects of whatever choice we make while also highlighting the positive aspects of the alternative choices.  It’s like there’s no winning here.

So what’s the remedy.  Well, we can’t cover all our basis, but lets address the key factors I’ve already brought up.  Do your best to accept that happiness is simply an emotion not a permanent destination.  Work to visit often but don’t expect to stay.  Recognize that your predictions about what will make you happy are probably wrong.  You’ll be better off cultivate appreciation for what you have rather than trying to gather more things.  Minimize or eliminate choice wherever you can, then focus on developing genuine gratitude for the choices you’ve made.  Reduce the criticism and judgment and look for all the things you can appreciate.

Dan Gilbert can walk you through some great research on this topic in his TED talk.