Personal Values
Why Are Personal Values Important?
Whether we realize it or not, we all have personal values. Some of our values are formed early in life, influenced by our upbringing, environments, religions, or cultures. Meaningful experiences can call us to reevaluate values or add new ones throughout life.
Most often, our values are running in the background like the operating system on an iPhone or computer. They’re driving actions, behaviors, feelings, and decisions— but often subconsciously. And that’s why knowing your values is so important. When you bring them from the background into the foreground, you have a lot more control over them. You can get curious about the values you hold, which make sense still and which you’d like to let go of.
Core Values vs. Personal Values
Core values and personal values are often used interchangeably, but they have two distinct meanings— one more fixed, and one more inclusive. Our earliest experiences in life shape us, and that includes our values. The earliest values we form help us order and make sense of the world around us. Some folks refer to these early, relatively fixed personal values as core values. They are the values that tend not to change much over time. But not all values are fixed. As we grow and encounter new ideas, people, places, or experiences, we can add to or subtract from our list of values. This inclusive “list” of values is sometimes referred to as personal values. Personal values is therefore an inclusive umbrella term that includes fixed values and the values that change over time.
Working with Personal Values
At the end of the day, values are a set of beliefs. We form stories and mindsets around our behaviors that in turn impact how we navigate life. Our brains also get busy reinforcing those beliefs with information from out in the world. It disregards facts and contradictory information to prop up the existing belief. If you fancy yourself evolved and capable of making reasoned decisions based on weighing facts without bias, this might be uncomfortable to hear.
Try not to get too down on yourself though, stay with me and stay open.
Seriously, it’s not your fault; you can blame evolution✨The tl;dr is that brains evolved to conserve energy. Despite making up only ~2% of your body weight, it consumes 20% of its metabolic load. In other words, it’s a very hungry organ. Science calls this “expensive.” The brain is expensive to power. Think of it like a sports car— it’s very impressive but extremely inefficient on fuel. In the state of nature with a hearty meal is not promised, the brain defaults to shortcuts to save energy where it can.
What’s this got to do with values and mindsets? Everything. When you decide to believe or value something, the brain thinks, “Ah, cool. Got that sorted.” And it moves on to other tasks. It doesn’t want to spend time (read: fuel) reevaluating that position every single time new information presents itself. So it will very efficiently look for information that reinforces the belief it already holds. The beauty of working with values and mindsets is that this is just a default mode— it can be interrupted.
Extending the car analogy for the last time (I swear), when you drive around a curve, you don’t think to yourself “It is now time to turn the steering wheel.” You just sort of do it; you’re on autopilot. But if a bunny dashes into the road, you’ll be snapped out of autopilot and weighing new information very quickly. When we bring our values out of autopilot, we can get our brains to reassess the beliefs we hold. There’s a lot of power in that space.
Fixed or Growth Mindset?
The word values has a strong positive correlation in English. It can even have a principled vibe— like, are you even living your values, bruh? But let’s be honest here (one of my values!), values are beliefs; they are real but not true. They are important and feel very real to us, but they are not facts and they are not universal. If this brings up an existentialist dilemma for you, my apologies. My perspective is that this is a really good thing.
It means that our values aren’t things that happen TO US. They aren’t actually fixed. We are active participants and we have the power to work with, change, or grow in our values. But I am a growth mindset girlie. You can choose to see your values as fixed, unchanging, and outside of your control (fixed mindset) or you can see them as lovely guideposts meant to guide you though life, under your control, and capable of change. If your values are there to make your life easier (by allowing your brain to take decisive, beneficial action on autopilot), but your values are no longer making your life easier, it’s time to grow.
Ready to explore and grow your values? I can help!