Do You Know What You Value?

Value - A persons principles or standards of behavior, ones judgement of what is important in life.

Knowing what you value is one of the most important aspects of your character, and ultimately your personality.  As we go through life, we have experiences everyday that shape who we are and who we will become.  How we learn to respond to our experiences becomes easier when we take a conscious look at who we want to become.  We are always a work in progress, and while we are working towards something, we must know what that “something” is.  In order to have the clarity to make the best decisions for ourselves, we have to solidify the what and the why in our minds.  The better we understand what we are working towards and why, the easier it is to stay focused.  The easier we make it to remain focused, the more we can utilize our time and energy to create what we truly desire.  Distracted energy is wasted energy.  Your ability to create focus and discipline will be dependent on whether or not you truly understand and commit to what you value.

Your values have to come from you.  They are inspired from the outside, but you have to sit down and think about your life without any influence.  You have to take a moment to think about what you appreciate and what you want to create for yourself.  The more concrete your values become, the easier it is to build habits that run along side these values because of the results those habits will produce.  You can seek advice from your family, people you respect, and your friends, but ultimately, you must look at what inspires you outside of your bubble and what it will take for you to become someone you dream of.  That person you imagine is just one starting decision away from you being them, and it is never to late to start.  Ever since I was about 13 years old, I knew one of my top priorities in life is to be a positive role model for the people around me and especially young kids growing up.  I will stay true to what I believe in and how I want to influence the world.  I have no control over what other people choose to do and how other people choose to see me, but I do have control over what I choose to do and how I see myself.  

Writing about this can only be done because I have asked myself questions and spent the time thinking about the answers.  It is easy to write about what you should do, but actually doing it means you BELIEVE it.  I can’t write about something I haven’t been able to do.  I care that the information actually makes a direct difference when you choose to accept it into your life.  Your outer world is a direct result of what your mind values and focuses on(inner world).  I believe that when I strongly focus on what I want to express in my inner world, it is only a matter of practice and repetition until it is created, felt, and manifested in my tangible life and environment.  So I will share my personal top 5 values with you.

My Top 5 Values (Not in any particular order)

Health

Time

Discipline/Practice

Family

Love

Sometimes these values are challenged, even daily.  But a challenge is only a challenge if you aren’t prepared for it.  If you know who you are, and continue knowing that is who you want to be, it is easier to make a decision.  You don’t need time to think about the answer, you already know what it needs to be.  You have thought about it, so you already know what you should do, and how you should act.  That is when you find yourself becoming more of yourself through action. Will that be the case in every situation and circumstance, of course not.  You will run into novel situations and sometimes uneasy circumstances. But if you know who you are and who you want to be, then the answers present themselves much more quickly.  

Example:

If you know that one of your values is health, which I believe that everyone should hold this as a core value, then you make daily decisions that help you to remain as healthy as possible.  No one likes to be sick, and no one wants to be sick.  If you know someone that does, please let me know, because so far, I have not met anyone that has admitted that!  So if you know you value this, why would you continue behaving in ways that make you sick?  Being unaware that our daily behaviors are directly linked to this come from us not taking a second to commit to a conscious decision to make health a value of ours.  When you value health, you seek information that creates a health conscious version of you.  But you have to be aware of these small decisions in order for you to be able to make them.  When you are around other people who are not aware, then it is easy to behave as everyone else does.  It is only when we get sick or diseased that we question our actions.  When you are truly healthy, not just alive and surviving, but truly healthy, is your ability to express and serve at your highest potential for both yourself and those you love limitless.  

Sometimes we mistake surviving for being healthy.  Our human bodies are so resilient that it takes a lot to destroy us.  But we are only ever moving towards one of two physical(and mental) states, getting better or getting worse.  Everyday we have presents itself as an opportunity to start setting up your personal behavioral system to either get better or get worse.  We all know what we want, but are you willing to create a new version of yourself to get it?  My answer to that is, why wouldn’t you?

Your mood is directly impacted by this state, and we know how much our moods dictate who we are.  When you can control and train your mood, you can help control both your inner and outer worlds.  When you are healthier and less stressed the more confidence you have, your ability to accomplish tasks no matter their difficulty seems much easier, you physically feel better, and you can share your energy with the people around you in a much greater way because you have the ability to share it openly without it affecting your health.  These circumstances are immensely beneficial for not only you, but everyone around you. 

Now imagine if that was multiplied.  Imagine if we collectively prioritized and understood our health.  If you have ever worked on a group project before then you know the difference between everyone contributing versus you having to take on some extra work because someone not putting in their fair share.  For this example, let’s pretend you are working within a team of 5 people, and you are the one contributing the most.  You have the most energy and when you recognize that this is happening, instead of complaining about what you recognize, you encouraged everyone that if we individually contributed and did our best work, the project will be much more impactful. If we each take personal responsibility and care for the outcome, it will easily be better.  Now if someone is bogged down by low energy because they don’t feel well or are sick, it impacts the group.  But the healthier we are, the more likely we are to be able to take that thought and properly act on it because we have the energy source to pull from.  Trying to pull energy from a depleted source is impossible and actually dangerous to our health and if we prioritized our health and wellness as a culture, we would be less tired, less sick, and much more likely to create joyful experiences and self accomplishment more often.

Health is energy, and your use of energy dictates everything.  Prioritize your energy, prioritize your values.