Values : What Is Important to You Now?

By Ruth Kwalanda | May, 2024

What do you value in your life at this moment in time? What lights a fire in your belly either negatively or positively? Values are just that, what you value at the moment, they can be conscious or unconscious. They shape behaviour knowingly or unknowingly. They can be shared or personal. Values are short form descriptive of what is important to us  personally or as family, organization or community.

Whereas values are universal, the behaviours associated with them are dependent. Eg family might be a value shared by two people, one of them their behaviour is to spent a lot of time with family and to another is work very hard to provide for their family. It is important to know our core values 3-7 and what are our behaviours related to these values, because when we do not define this, then we do not live in harmony with ourselves and it might be a source of misunderstanding or conflict with those around us.

Richard Barrett, one of the most imminent authors on values, says . ‘Values are energetic containers of your aspirations’.   What does this mean? That values are an internal thing within us, they are an indicator of that which is important, showing us which direction we need to take. What needs to shape our preoccupation and determine our behaviours/actions to bring us into alignment to that which important.

Reflective activity

1. What are your top 7 values?  Click here for a list you can choose from.

2. For each one of them, what are the three ways/things or behaviours that reflect this value?

3. Ask someone who knows you well, what they think your values are? Is their alignment?

4. Notice the things that upset or cause worry or anxiety in you. Journal them

The big idea is that our values drive our lives and behaviour, whether we know them or not. However, when we know them, we align ourselves and life becomes a very exciting journey.

In this part one is to know your values, why they are important to you now and is your behaviour consistent with these values or not?  For example, I may value being a Christian, but are my behaviours reflecting Christ? or is my life and behaviour in conflict? If so how can I bring alignment into this value? If family is a value I hold, is my life in alignment, can those around me perceive that family is important is the way I make choices and decisions consistent with this value? In my behaviour?

We shall explore an advanced understanding of values in the near future.

Something to ponder

Truth 1- It is written;

‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and ^[b]mighty things, which you do not know.’ (New King James Version [NKJV]  1982, Jeremiah 33:3)

Truth 2- It is written;

‘while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.’ ( NKJV, 1982, 2 Corinthians 4:18)

May you be aligned and illuminating!