Values and Priorities
What do you value the most?......
Hello my dear readers! I am very thankful that you are reading this article about values! They are so important. And yet sometimes we do not pay attention to them.
So what exactly can help you in terms of values? Are there any actions you can take to improve your life? I will be honest, some of the ideas for this article I stole from Tony Robbins's book "Awaken the Giant Within". You can also find it in Chicago Public Library. Awesome book, highly recommend it. But I also added some of my own ideas. The interesting part about values and Tony's book is that he said that he decided to change some of his values after he experienced some real pain. And this is exactly what happened to me. So if you feel a lot of pain right now, you probably need to do something about your values.
Here is the link to the video for this article: Values and Priorities.
And here is my simple approach.
Write down the list of your values. I must say that there are two two types of values: direct and indirect. Example of direct value is health, and example of indirect value is veggies. So you value veggies because you value your health. And you can write down both of types. It is extremely important exercise, because your values control your decisions and actions. As I said, if you value your health, you will buy veggies, so because of this value, you make a specific choice. And it happens all the time. If for whatever reason you cannot follow your values, you feel pain. And sometimes you have a values conflict, it also makes you uncomfortable. So you need to know your values to be more aware, more mindful. Otherwise your values will control you, and you will be their slave, not the other way around.
Look at your direct values and try to understand if your priorities serve you well. For example I always valued love (direct) the most and because of that if I liked a man, I would put him at the top of my priorities. And I was doing it not because I was making a conscious decision, it was my biological reality. I wanted to feel loved and it was all about my man. But it never did any good for me. And I started to train my brain to focus more on other values, I switched my focus on my self-development and self-realization. It became my priority. I also decided that creativity should be an important part of my life. And the area of relationships I moved more to the bottom of my list. But it didn't work really well either. And this is when I realized that the most important thing for me is my internal peace. And that my happiness should be my priority. And my success or relationships can be important too, but I always need to remember how much I value my joy, my peace!
Train yourself to work on values that serve you well. Let's say you are highly focused on success and your job. And because of that you don't have enough sleep, don't have time to work out, you started to notice that you are having some health issues. It means that you need to switch your priorities and focus on your health first and then on your career and success. The most helpful thing to me was affirmations. So I decided to switch my focus from one value which was biologically wired into my brain, to the one which made more sense to my happiness but wasn't too natural. First, I set up several reminders with app called Alarmed. Then I recorded affirmation in Voice Memos on my iPhone. I needed specific affirmation that would suit me perfectly, so I created one by myself. You will not be able to train yourself if you don't believe in what you are doing. I truly believed that I needed to make a change, that I could do it, and because of that my affirmation worked for me. I tried some generic ones from meditation apps and it wasn't a lot of help. So dedicate some time to write down or record your affirmations and repeat them as much as you need mindfully.
So these are my simple steps. You become aware of your values, move them around, and train yourself to stick to the ones which can make your life better. If you don't do this, you will be a slave of your biology, your unconscious values. I highly recommend you to watch the videos Brain in Trial Episode 1 and Brain in Trial Episode 2. In second part of this documentary they made an experiment on how a young man's behavior can change if his friends are present because at certain age kids value their peers opinion a lot (minute 20 of episode 2). And because they value this opinion so much they can get into troubles. It is a great example of how biology can cause us pain if we are not mindful about our values.
Please think about your values, work on them and help others as much as you can!
Be Strong And Love Yourself!
From Dasha With Love
Love Wins!
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