What Are the Benefits of Knowing Our Values? 

Purpose and meaning in life

One of the most commonly quoted and possibly strongest arguments in favour of identifying and moving towards our values is that doing so can give our lives a greater sense of meaning and purpose, which are linked with heightened physical and psychological well-being (Creswell et al., 2005; McCracken & Yang, 2006). Living in line with our values can make our lives more meaningful. 

Continued direction and sustained behaviour 

As mentioned on the previous page under Values as directions, not goals, values allow us to maintain a forward direction toward something that we derive great meaning from, no matter how many goals along the way we tick off. This provides us with continued direction and a sustainable source of purpose. 

Values tend to be fairly stable, at least over the short and medium-term. Whereas emotions typically aren’t. Therefore, in troubling times when our emotions are riding a rollercoaster, we still have the potential to resort back to our more stable values for guidance on how best we would like to direct our actions and sustain our preferred behaviour. Values work can therefore be an effective means to sustainable behaviour change.

Something to measure 

Once we know what our values are, we can then use them as a yardstick to measure our progress. If our actions bring us closer to our values, then we know we have made progress and it can be praised as an accomplishment. 

Our values can provide the why behind what we do. We can then determine whether our actions are moving us in the direction we want to go, slowing us down or stopping us. Measuring our actions up against our values can then help us identify how best to continue acting in the future. 

Values can also provide a powerful and much more motivating why. Take for example the common anxiety that people experience when engaging in public speaking. If we valued giving people an effective, enjoyable and lasting education, we might then decide that teaching is the job for us. However, what if we are also aware that we hate public speaking and the thought of getting up in front of a classroom each day is terrifying?

Upon identifying our values and committing to moving toward them, we might find ourselves more willing to face our fears in order to live more in line with our values. Although the road to public speaking and teaching mastery might be a difficult one, we could measure our progress by asking ourselves, “am I still doing what I value? Am I doing what I think is important?” 

Informed goal setting 

Awareness of our values can help us create value-aligned goals that sustain meaningful action. An advantage of this alignment is the vitality, creativity, resourcefulness, self-regulation and resilience that it cultivates within us. These value-aligned, self-concordant goals have been found to increase goal success and well-being (Deci & Ryan, 2008; Sheldon & Elliot, 1999). Given the growing evidence that goal pursuit is just as, if not more important than goal attainment (Kaftan & Freund, 2018), the setting of goals that align with our values can be a truly worthwhile task.

It is likely that when we create goals, we are doing so in an attempt to move towards something we value. However, what can sometimes be the case is that these goals become larger than life and we can stick to them too rigidly. An understanding of our values can also allow us to analyse our existing goals to see how likely they are to move us forward in our most valued direction. This can at times be a painful and humbling experience, as we discover that our long-held goals might not have actually benefited us as much as we’d initially hoped, and that potentially, the very pursuit of these goals might be in conflict with our values. 

On the other hand, it could be an energising experience, as we discover that our goals allow us to continue living in a way that we feel is meaningful. This might encourage us to approach them with increased vitality and commitment. 

References 

1. Creswell, J. D., Welch, W. T., Taylor, S. E., Sherman, D. K., Gruenewald, T. L., & Mann, T. (2005). Affirmation of personal values buffers neuroendocrine and psychological stress responses. Psychological Science, 16(11), 846–851.
2. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2008). Self-determination theory: A macrotheory of human motivation, development, and health. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 49(3), 182–185. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012801.
3. Kaftan, O. J., & Freund, A. M., (2018). The Way is the Goal: The Role of Goal Focus for Successful Goal Pursuit and Subjective Well-Being. In: Diener, E; Oishi, S; Tay, L. Handbook of well- being. Salt Lake City, UT: DEF Publishers, online.
4. McCracken, L. M., & Yang, S. Y. (2006). The role of values in a contextual cognitive-behavioral approach to chronic pain. Pain, 123(1–2), 137–145.
5. Sheldon, K. M., & Elliot, A. J. (1999). Goal striving, need satisfaction, and longitudinal well- being: The self-concordance model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 546– 557.