Your Values Lead to Lasting Happiness and Wellbeing

If I ask you what you value, what would you say? Maybe your family, friends, your home or possessions?

Values can definitely include those things but they also include qualities, characteristics and practices.

This is an interesting exercise to explore what are your values: https://motivationalinterviewing.org/sites/default/files/valuescardsort_0.pdf.  

Simply set a timer for 10 min and categorize the values in 3 buckets: Very Important, Important and Not Important. Then, set a timer for 5 minutes and pick your top 5 values (for now...they grow, change and evolve as you do!).  

Being aware of these values can help you appreciate the things that you’re doing anyway in a new way, knowing that you are actually living what is most important to you. This awareness can also help you start to intentionally add in things that are consistent with your values and ditch or delegate things that are not. 

Recently, I experienced a moment of pure joy. I wasn’t doing anything extraordinary. It was a moment that I realized that several of my values collided in one ordinary but beautiful afternoon.

My teenage daughter and I belong to a service organization and signed up to help a local animal rescue by walking one of the dogs in their care.  I realized as we were walking that I was hitting several key values all at one time!  This is kind of unique; usually you hear me talking about priority (singular) vs. priorities (plural) and doing one thing at a time right?

But on this day, I was hitting fitness/health, service/community and family together.  Because my daughter brought her friend (do teenage girls go anywhere without a friend??), I also had a chance to pray and then catch up with my friend on the phone after the girls ran ahead.  That is 5 values in one hour, friends!

Thanks for letting me share!  Please explore your values so that you can intentionally incorporate and appreciate them in your life and maybe even find a moment of pure joy!