One of the biggest gaps in recovery from anxiety or depression is the need to define new values and beliefs that will guide you towards a more fulfilling life filled with calmness and purpose.
By consciously identifying who you want to become and what you wish to achieve in life, you enable your unconscious mind to lead you toward those goals.
Values and beliefs are key to our personal development
Can you easily list them? – If you have some difficulties listing your values, then it may be interesting to read on.
Self-aware people are consciously (or unconsciously) aware of their values, the things that are important to them, and the essence of what they believe in. Values can come in all shapes and sizes – love, calmness, personal growth, making a difference, courage, honesty, confidence, friendship, win-win, determination, resourcefulness, adventure, caring – the list goes on.
Once your values are understood, they become the code that guides your decisions – your decisions align with YOUR values (not what someone else thinks).
The importance of values and beliefs
By discovering your core values you will gain a valuable understanding of just who you are and what makes you tick – I feel this is a very important aspect of personal growth. This can be further enhanced by asking yourself – “what new values would be useful to me at this time in my life – to enable me to get where I want to go?” By discovering your values you can begin to resolve the hidden conflicts in your life, remove stress and give yourself more direction.
And we all have beliefs too, things we believe we can do and things we believe we can’t. The fact is – what you believe, tends to happen – so it is far more productive to believe you can – and then just do it!
I believe that we all have core values; whether we know it or not. When these values and beliefs are compromised we tend to feel bad and when we are living our lives in-line with those values we tend to feel more comfortable and more in control. We all have secondary values too, values that can be appropriate for a certain amount of time, ones that we can bring to the fore as required as the events in our lives unfold. For example; you may want to increase your courage as you start a new job – or you may want to promote your value of “availability” when you have a young family.
Eliciting your values is not easy, but it is beneficial; remember values are ways of being that mean something important to you. When you know what your values are (and they are in order of importance) decision making becomes far easier – as you just follow your values.
In my experience, it is very useful to become the type of person who moves towards solutions rather than away from problems, because often the quickest way to find a solution is just to charge right at it, rather than pussy-footing around getting all anxious and fretful. Once your unconscious mind can see your clear list of values and can recognise that achieving these will be good for you, somehow, it just takes you forward. Of course, there will be ups and downs, but at least you will have a map reminding you of what is important to you. Take your time with this – it may take a week or it might take a month, either way, it is worth the effort.
Decision making hierarchy
Based on my experience, defining your decision-making hierarchy can help you align your life more effectively. For example, consider what matters most to you: is your work more important than your primary relationship? Is your health a higher priority than your job? Is food more significant to you than your weight?
These priorities are crucial, yet many people neglect to reflect on who they want to be and what they desire from life. Often, they get caught up in feelings of anxiety or the apathy that can stem from depression.
In Part 2 of Video 32 from my course, I guide you through my process for answering these important questions.