The Value of Values.

“Once we achieve our wants - we get that car, or spouse or job that we’ve taken to be a value - life calls our bluff. We soon feel how empty those aspirations were because they were not connected to living according to what was truly meaningful. Our thirst for chosen meaning and purpose will be unquenched.”
- Steven Hayes - A Liberated Mind p.231

Our values are where the rubber hits the road. Values are our chosen qualities of being and doing. ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) therapist Russ Harris also uses the analogy of values as a compass that guides us on the journey of life.

Problems usually come up when we don’t pay attention to our internal compass. However, sometimes problems can come up when we do pay attention: that’s usually when we start questioning what we’re doing with our lives or realising that we’ve become stuck and that something needs to change.

Psychologist Steven Hayes provides a good explanation of why values matter in his book “A Liberated Mind”:

 “So many of us are afraid to risk admitting to ourselves and others, that we care deeply about our true aspirations. We short shrift our lives. We don’t reach for the stars and instead play small. We often shut ourselves off from expressing the depth of our love, denying ourselves the richness of relationships we might have. Isn’t this in large part because it hurts to risk failure or rejection?” (P.116)

 In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy the phrase that represents values is “do what matters” but first we need to work out exactly what it is that matters to us and why.

If we know what we stand for and how we are going to spend our time living our life, it’s much harder to be distracted by external, socially sanctioned achievements. Measuring our worth based on our ability to achieve or fail at a job, a relationship, an ultra-marathon, or our ability to bake a perfect cake is a recipe for anxiety.  As Hayes writes:

 [We] lose sight of the fact that the way to fulfilment is living day to day in a way that is meaningful in itself, not primarily as a means to some other end, such as social acceptance or wealth…”

We can still go ahead and apply for that job, throw ourselves into that relationship, run that ultra-marathon (good luck I’ll be at home in bed cheering you on), or bake that Hollywood-Handshaking Happy Cake.

The important thing is to know what values we’re expressing by doing it and why that’s important, meaningful and fulfilling to us. This helps us deal with the inevitable pain, effort and struggle life brings: negative judgments from others when it comes, feedback when we fail, or repairing things when we might have inadvertently hurt others too.

It also helps us deal with the pain that having a purpose also creates because the more we care the more we hurt when things don’t go as planned.

Values versus Goals.

Values are not goals. Values are where we’re going – the direction of the journey – and we might not ever get there, so values remain open ended. Goals on the other hand are more limited, they are the things we need to do to head in the right direction. Goals are finite; once they are done, they are ticked off the to-do list and we move on.

One tricky dilemma can be that our values get subverted by our goals. For example: I must stay in my current stressful, boring job which pays well, rather than retrain as a glass blower, because my family would see me as a failure if I left.  

Here, the values of creativity, individuality and adventurousness are bracketed off by goals related to social acceptance or following the rules - pliance: earning “enough” money, career progression, supporting the family.

Hayes argues that “goals may also be a way of avoiding acceptance of who we are and our authentic aspirations”. In this example, we cover ourselves by staying in the boring job and foregrounding themes of responsibility and family, and avoiding the risk/pain of failure in pursuing the dream of becoming a glassblower.

Another problem with goals is they invite discrepancy based processing or what CBT refers to as “compare and despair” thinking.  Goals are often framed in conditional terms: when I get that promotion, I’ll be happy, when I bake that cake and get a Hollywood Handshake, I’ll have finally arrived, when I get into glass blowing school, all my problems will be solved. We end up continually seeing our current circumstances as inadequate, and if we fail to achieve those goals (hello, ultra-marathon) then this is further proof that we’re inadequate. Fun times.

Values give meaning to goals, for example becoming a glassblower connects with values around creativity and adventure. But we need to achieve the goal of getting into glass-blowing school in order to move our life in a direction that feels more authentic and reflective of us and our values. The temptation can be to over-focus on values based on keeping everyone else happy or conforming to social pressures. Resisting this is much easier said than done!

As Hayes writes “In your pain you find your values, and in your avoidance you find your values disconnection.” (p.228) It’s here that defusion skills (ways of unhooking from our thoughts and stories) becomes important. In addition we also need to  develop ways of staying in the present rather than being catapulted into the future by over-focusing on goals to come, or getting sucked into the past by ruminating on goals that weren’t achieved. Future blog posts will cover this aspect of ACT.

 Meanwhile, you can explore what values are important to you by completing the Valued Living Questionnaire or try out the online Values Card Sort.

If you feel you need support clarifying your values and goals and how this could help you lead a more flexible, fulfilling and meaningful life, feel free to contact us here at Rhizome Practice to explore how ACT might help you connect with what matters for you.