What Matters Most?
Valu-able Psychology
Put your values into action if you are able. Hence, valu-able.
What is most important to you?
Does your answer reflect something bigger than you, such as your child, family, and partnership? Do you factor your sense of self into this equation, or are you more likely to push yourself aside? How you answer this question reflects your values and what’s most important.
Psychological research shows that companionship and family make people happier. If true, why do we chase after the promotion, cherish money like the ultimate treasure, and massively consume trinkets, possessions, and worldly goods like nobody’s business? Does the seductiveness of achievement, appearance, and affluence have a grip on us that won’t let go? How do we break the cycle of selfishness, greed, and insecurity? Or are we just human and need to learn to enjoy the ride with less consternation and moral guilt?
The simple answer is to knowingly and steadily put time and energy into our values.
Values are aspirational and inspirational. They guide you in a spectacular direction while providing the energy to stay the course. Values are, at once, a roadmap and compass. When you remain true to your values, you move closer to being the person you were always meant to be.
Impressive, right?
Happiness and Values: Do They Connect
It’s easy to say one thing and do another. When your words and actions conflict, people notice. The pivotal question is, “Do you?” What’s your track record for saying what you’ll do and doing what you say? Do you drop the ball now and again and become your own worst enemy? Is your life guided by mixed messages, and people see you as unsettled, perhaps two-faced and untrustworthy?
In the busyness of life, it’s easy to become distracted by high-pressure deadlines, mounting responsibilities, and juggling, constantly juggling. The saying, “If not one thing, it’s another,” is bafflingly apropos when describing modern life.
At the Relationship Intelligence Center, we’ve developed a suite of psychological concepts, insights, and tools that help you navigate life’s unsolvable problems. While powerful and life-changing, your values become optional without being true to your moral code. To help people get on track and stay on course, the concept of “valu-able” was discovered.
Are you ready, willing, and “able” to act by your values? Demonstrating your ability to follow your values regularly and predictably is what is meant by “value-able.” When you put your values in a primary position that guides your priorities and behaviors, you are being “value-able” or, without the hyphen, actively valuing yourself and others. If this sounds like you, Congratulations! stay the course. If you’re a bit uncertain, let’s put your values to the test.
Put Your Values to the Test
Since behavior doesn’t lie, you can discover what’s most important by taking the values test. The test is easy but tricky. The test asks you to be more honest than right.
Here’s what you need to do. First, study the pictograph below. Second, number your top priorities. Put a “1” in the sector reflecting your top priority, and a “2” for your second, then a “3” for your third choice. Place the numbers inside the white circle if committing to each value comes easy to you, and place it outside if “you’re working on it.” Next, sit back and mentally note how you feel about this reality staring back at you. Finally, here’s the hard part, ask someone who knows you, a confidante, to look at your completed pictograph and share with you what they think are your top priorities. Do their thoughts align with appraisal?
The values test results are meant to verify, expected or not, whether you’re on course and heading in the direction you desire. As an aside, but essential, understand that all values have three things in partnership: common sense, common decency, and the common good. Being true to yourself and staying aligned with your values means that good things happen to you and those around you. Note that values entail mutual benefit.
Values make the world go round, spinning compassionately and collaboratively.
When your words and actions match, you are living up to what you stand for. Being single-minded about making a difference and helping others by helping yourself is a prizeworthy mission. It gives you purpose, motivation, and direction. The optimal trifecta.
In our consumer-saturated society, it is easy to get sidetracked or mugged by shiny objects such as fame, fortune, and beauty. If your test results were unexpected and disappointing, don’t fret. It’s never too late to press the redo button and begin moving toward being the person you were always meant to be.
Valu-able Psychology
In relational psychology, good things happen when you put your values into action. The diagram below shows how “valuable” connects with fundamental concepts, including the self, marriage, parenting, and divorce. While it may surprise that divorce made the list, it is vital and included because as families restructure because of divorce, adjusting to a new normal is made easier by living in accordance with shared values.
The philosophy of Relationship Intelligence is founded on the principle that we need each other. Without connection, communication fails. Without communication, relationships fail. Without relationships, personal growth and development fail. Do you see how essential connections are and how upsetting disconnections can be?
Remember, your mind is not relational. It is not designed to bring people together. Instead, your mind is self-serving, keeping self-preservation as its top priority. So, this is where your challenge begins. Ask yourself, “Who’s in control – you or your mind?”
Press the button below to learn more about how your mind works as described in Dr. Zierk’s book, Mind Rules: Who’s in Control, You or Your Mind?