Are you living by your values?

What do you value most?

The only way we can ever feel happy and fulfilled in the long term is to live in accordance with our true values.  If we don’t, we’re sure to experience intense pain.  So often, people develop habitual patterns of behaviour that frustrate or could potentially destroy them:

·         Smoking

·         Drinking

·         Overeating

·         Abusing drugs

·         Attempting to control others

·         Dominating others

·         Watching hours of television and so on

What’s the REAL problem here?  These behaviours are really the result of 

·         Frustration

·         Anger

·         Emptiness 

That people feel because they don’t have a sense of fulfilment in their lives.  They are trying to distract 

themselves from those    feelings by trying to.

So are you aware of perhaps heading down this road well MIND THE GAP!

One tries to fill the gap 

with behaviours that produces a “quick fix” change of state.

This behaviour become a pattern, and people often focus on changing the behaviour itself rather than deal with the CAUSE!

They don’t just have a drinking problem; they have a values problem.  The only reason they’re drinking is to try to change their emotional state because they don’t like the way they feel moment by moment.   They don’t know what’s the most IMPORTANT to them in their lives.

The consolation is that whenever we do live by our highest standards, wherever we fulfil and meet our values, we feel immense joy.  We don’t need the excess food or drink.  We don’t need to put ourselves into a stupor, because life itself becomes so incredibly rich without these excess.  Distracting ourselves from such incredible heights would be taking sleeping pills on Christmas morning.

Guess what the challenge is!

As always we were already asleep when the essence of what would shape our lives was formed.  We were children who didn’t understand the importance of having a clear sense of our values, or adults dealing with the pressures of life, already distracted to the point where we couldn’t direct the information of our values.  I must reiterate that every decision is guided by these values, and in most cases, we didn’t set them up.

Make a list of your top ten values in life, to them in precise order of importance.  I’d be willing to bet that only one in 10,000 could do it!  But if you don’t know the answer this question how can you make any clear decision at all?

How can you make choices that you know in the long term will meet your deepenst emotional needs?

It’s hard to hit a target when you don’t know what it is!  Knowing your values is critical to being to live them.

What do you value most?

Adventurousness, Empathy, Love, Loyalty, Perceptiveness, Pleasure, Wealth, Humour, Charm, Creativity, Cleanliness, Boldness, Intelligence, Wisdom eg...