I enjoy identifying values with my clients. It is a simple exercise, but one that most people have never done for themselves. I researched and read on the internet somewhere that if our life is a landscape, then the distant mountains or destination is our Vision, the road that leads to the mountains is our Mission and the vehicle or transport we are riding on, in order to get to our destination represents our Values.
I very much like this analogy because it is how I see values. They are our vehicle or map that helps us get to where we want to go. Without them, we are often lost or we cannot get to our destination.
Some people are content to wander the world and through life with no specific goals or plans or maps. I call them the free-spirited who are uncomfortable with structure and so do not want any in their own lives. They live around the world on friends’ sofas or floors and in cheap accommodation they find. The Vision or Mountains or Destination is not important. It is the journey that counts. Talk to them about values and the answer is difficult because they have so many.
Some other people, like me, are working towards getting to the mountains. The journey is as important as the destination. So it is essential to me how I travel on this road. I work on values a lot and now have locked down at least three values that do not change under any circumstance.
Most people I have met or worked with have not identified their values. I find that especially in relationships, knowing your values is very important, because often it is not love that keeps a marriage going, it is shared values.
My parents were two young people who did not marry for love. They were introduced through a matchmaker, as they used to do in the older days. Now in their seventieth year of marriage, my mother will tell anyone who would listen, that it was not love that bound her to my father and him to her. It was their shared values of Family and Security that kept the marriage going. It was not a marriage of ‘chocolate and roses’ but my parents’ values about family kept them together through the worst of it.
Understanding your values is like knowing who you are. What is important to you defines you as a person. If your value is respect, then it is likely that you will behave more respectfully with people and will not tolerate disrespect. In the case of my parents’ value of Family, they defend our family to the end and will not tolerate any insult upon us. They will do anything for family and for us, their children, even to their own detriment.
Young people fall in and out of love for looks, charisma, adventure, excitement, passion without understanding and identifying their own fundamental values. They look past them and then if they continue to ignore their own values, end up in unhappy, desperate relationships based on fear and lack.
If you know your values, you can walk away when the values are not met or violated. If you do not yet know what is important to you, then you may stay in bad situations for all the wrong reasons, like staying with someone because he or she is exciting and popular, even if unkind.
So what defines you? Who are you and how do you want people to describe you when you are no longer here to correct them?
MyMohio 