Posts tagged Important In Your Life
Live Your Values, Define Your Life
Sep 29th
Living your life around your highest values can allow you to be fulfilled and focused, giving you the tools to choose easily what is important to you, based on those guiding values.
What are Values?
We all have values; they are the sum of your preferences and priorities, that you hold important in your life.? Values are intangible, and sometimes be challenging to pinpoint, however, by taking a little time and allowing yourself some space, you will soon find the significant ones in your life.
It is important to understand that the values you hold significant are just that, they are yours, no-one else’s so totally unique to you.
Examples of common values are: family, security, relaxation, health, humour, and independence, achievement, money, honesty.
Conflict can occur when you live your life without honouring your most significant values.
For example if you identify ‘family’ as one of your highest values, yet your relationships with siblings or parents are strained and difficult, it can lead to dissatisfaction, stress and unhappiness.
Similarly if you are stuck in the cycle of overeating and not exercising and yet health is a significant value for you, you will be out of balance; this imbalance will show up as stress and unhappiness.
Living a life aligned with your own set of values takes the difficulty out of choosing where to prioritise your time, it gives you a map to work with so making the choices easy.
Action Steps to define your values
Find a quiet spot and some free timeThink about the some of the values mentioned below, or add your own,Sort out your top 4Identify the gap between your reality and those significant valuesWrite down what steps you need to take to align your values with your reality?Take action today.
Below I have listed a number of common values. Use these to get started.
Family, security, excellence, creativity, beauty, to relate, to be heard, spirituality, adventure, fun, to inspire, to feel good, to nurture, to teach, to win, to be part of community, to contribute.
What Is a Belief System?
Sep 28th
Simply stated, our belief systems are the cornerstone for our attitudes and ideas about everything in our lives. One example is a person’s religious affiliation. Based on religious convictions, an individual may wear a specific type of clothing, participate in certain rituals, or avoid particular behaviors. Their actions are governed by their ideals. Another example is one’s political affiliation. The ideals that people hold about social causes and government issues like immigration and taxes dictate the political party they gravitate towards. A person’s values shape the types of organizations and social groups they join. People tend to socialize with others who share their ideals. Church congregations are examples of people who share a belief system about a deity, gathering together to share thoughts and feelings.
Belief systems are built around morals and interpretations of right and wrong. If someone holds the idea that drinking alcohol is morally wrong, this idea is a cornerstone of their belief system, and it will directly impact their actions. If someone holds the belief that eating meat is wrong, this will affect their diet choices. The compilation of ideas create an overall belief system, and this impacts people’s behavior, affiliations, and social circles. If you want to explore this further, begin by evaluating your core values. What are the ideals and characteristics you hold most important in your life? A few examples might be:
- Helping others
- Integrity
- Transformation
- Community
- Leadership
Your core values are like the anchor of your inner self. Experiences can also shape belief systems. We use labels to describe our physical characteristics, intellectual acuity, socio-economic level, and so on. These combined labels create our belief systems about ourselves. We believe ourselves to be fat, tall, skinny, attractive, unattractive, smart, slow, high energy, low energy, poor, or rich. The beliefs color our feelings, and affect our behaviors and the ways we express ourselves. They can dictate our clothing choices, our hairstyles, where we live, and the cars we drive. All of our behaviors can be traced back to our beliefs.
