Exploring Your Values gives Meaning To Your Life
Throughout their lives, people need to reform and reflect their values in order to achieve real meaning: to know what is and is not relevant to them, and to act accordingly.
It doesn’t matter if your values are superficial, hard to reach, or whether they require great sacrifices in the long run. Your values are simply things that make you happy and through which you can experience satisfaction with yourself.
However, your head may be filled with questions. What if I’m not very clear about my values? You will probably feel very lost then. Thus, we will next look at experiential metaphors and exercises that will help you bring your value to light. For exploring your values gives meaning to your life.
A metaphor for “homage”
This is difficult at the same time, but very revealing and beautiful. So I urge you to do it whenever you think your focus is at its best. Let’s look at an imaginary story that will help us reflect things later:
This metaphor is used in acceptance and dedication therapy and is intended to connect with the more intimate self. Many people go through serious identity and existential crises that put them in the order they feel and want in order to find purpose in their lives. Let’s look at another metaphor that will help you outline what you have already noticed during this previous metaphor.
A metaphor for weeds and flowers
You may know which values are important to your life. A life you want to give meaning to and enjoy an enjoyable journey from. However, sometimes it can seem like an impossible task.
Your mind can do tricks with you. Memories, traumas, and your past often take up more time and space in your mind than your accomplishments and motives. Let’s try to get you to clear some of your burden so that your steps are lightened and made meaningful. Tolerating and accepting discomfort includes:
Look at this metaphor and compare it to what is happening in your life and mind. How long have you wasted your time removing bad thoughts and feelings when you could only fight for what you really want in your life?
Bad ideas are like garden weeds. The more you try to remove them, the more they become a part of your life. If you simply let them be and tolerate the discomfort they bring, you will have much more time to dedicate to the important roses of your life: independence, self-reliance, travel, passion, or peace.
You need to fight for what you feel is relevant in your life. Never compare yourself to others. Your roses, your values do not deserve to be mistreated.
Strategy planning and the path towards your values
The model of goals, actions, and barriers (Hayes, 1999) will help you organize your strategies to get closer to your goals, which will hopefully now be clarified for you through the metaphorical reflections mentioned above.
Identify important areas of your life (family, friends, leisure…, etc.) and create a valuable direction for each of them. Write down the actions you are willing to take to achieve your goals and also consider the obstacles (environmental or psychological) that stand in the way of your journey.
It is important to accept the counterparty, define long-term plans to achieve the goal (study, time management, agenda) and consider the obstacles that may make your journey difficult on your chosen path (insecurity, instability…).
And don’t forget to ask yourself another question as well. If you didn’t have this problem, what would you do in your life to be happy? Do you realize that your problems are tolerable when something else, something good is next to it?
