Have you ever wondered what your purpose in life was? Are you just a victim of circumstance or do you have a grander purpose? If you are like each of us, from time to time it occurs to you that you must have a purpose. Perhaps it is our mature years or some yearning to just figure it out, but each of us have been working on this puzzle for the past few years. The result of all this was no great revelation but instead something like the pieces of a puzzle coming together.
When you are acting outside your values there is a lot of frustration in your life. Sometimes you try to live the values of others, which do not match your set of values. The result is a great inner conflict. The competing sets of values just do not mix. For example, your values may include extreme honesty while your job included a value that prevented complete honesty. Sooner or later you will encounter that moment of truth where you must choose. It is possible for you to be in a constant state of frustration and not be aware that you have this inner conflict with values. While you may not be conscious of your values, they are observable in the way you live your life.
What Do You Value?
To find your purpose and inner peace you must identify what your true values are. What kind of values do you want (work values and social values)? The hard part about defining values is VALUES are not negotiable. There is a difference between your values and a policy. A policy is negotiable, values are not. You could have honesty as a policy and decide, based on the circumstance, not to be honest. Let’s say you tell your secretary to tell certain people, that call, that you are busy but put others through to you. You tell a friend you will attend a function and then don’t want to go so you make up an excuse. In this case, honesty could be a policy but not a value. Values can be policy but all elements of a policy are not necessarily a value.
Values are the nonnegotiable characteristics you want reflected in your life. Values help you make choices, from the most mundane to life-and-death decisions. Determining your values is a necessary and important step in your personal and business development. Values convey who you are: the parameters you have set for yourself in terms of ethical, moral, theological and personal beliefs. Your values become the filter through which you determine right from wrong. If you do not define your values, the whims and influences of the world will define them for you. Values are subjective. Values might represent various character traits such as honesty, compassion, or generosity. Others may reflect our attitudes about people or life, running the gamut from being a loving partner to appreciating nature, having faith in a higher power or having freedom of thought.
We believe that our values come from three primary sources; our beliefs, our environment and nature.
Environment
The surroundings within which you grew up also contribute to your values. Your lifetime experiences will tend to teach you certain truths about life that you will accept as a value. You may discover that there is some real benefit to honesty so that becomes a value. To connect this to the idea above, you may even discover that there is a real benefit to one particular type of religion, so the values of that religion become yours.
Nature
You are part of nature and some values are inherited by this relationship. If you have a value that violates the laws of nature you will be in constant conflict. Values that include arrogance, greed or deceit will often fail because they are in conflict with human nature. These values are opposed to the values that make the world work in harmony. For example, you cannot have a value of racial purity without some level of conflict with the values of nature. You may develop a belief and a value that tells you that fire is to be feared, so that influences your decisions.
What Is Truth
Truth for you is determined by your established values. To prevent frustration or inner conflict in your life you must clearly identify all the values that you have accepted and any conflicts between these values. Only then will your truth be pure. Have you ever noticed that some people have no fear of things that you fear or that they may take action on something that you would never think of? Some people love to dance while others believe that it is a violation of their values.
Once we establish a set of values we tend to mix them together and form new values based on the existing values. For example, we may believe that fire is to be feared, God created fire so God is to be feared. Values can be very a powerful element in our decision process and also in our feelings of peace. If we somehow develop a value that conflicts with our other values we will never have peace. If many of these values are learned than we propose that we can examine our values and clean up our life. Some sort of meditation, prayer or soul-searching often does this. What we are reaching out for is guidance. If that is your purpose for meditation or prayer don’t ignore the advice you are getting. Our purpose is often revealed when we map our values to our skills. Once you develop a set of values that work together you will see your purpose unfold before you. As long as you have conflicts between your values you will not be at peace.
Belief
One of the most powerful sources for values is our spiritual belief. In fact, we would theorize that a religion is based on teaching a set of values. If you believe in the teachings of a religion you accept them as true without scientific proof. They become part of your value system.
Most religions have a common set of elements. There is a spiritual force that explains everything that we do not understand. For example the formation of our world was accomplished by some spiritual force. A very simplistic view we must admit, but it is a starting point to better understand life. The next element is a connection between this force and yourself.
Beliefs also are formed by exposure of others. Some people are raised in households that are religious based and their value system comes from the exposure as a child, which carries over, into adulthood. And there are some people who have formed their beliefs and created values by a searching process that may or may not include belief in a higher power.
We have noticed in our presentations that as a general rule those who have defined values that come from beliefs that remain in place over a period of time tend to also believe that we are answerable to some higher level of consciousness that is deep within us.
Once we have accepted a value as true our decisions will be shaped by that value. Choices will be made based on this value.
Our Values
We have been through this exercise many times and continually review our values. Here is a set of values that one of us developed recently to better define a relationship. We hope this will help show how values can be real and can affect your life. The values for a personal relationship between two people was defined as follows:
We are each a unique individual with our own needs and wants, driven by our lifetime mission and guided by our values in everything we do.
A relationship between two people (a couple) or a group of partners or stakeholders might be:
Honesty in our feelings with courage to express our needs and emotions. So often our needs are not expressed and go ignored. We will not allow this to happen. No matter what the needs are, emotional or physical, we have the trust and the courage to express them.
A passion to support each other with respect for each other’s needs, talents and self-worth. To establish an environment of trust we must provide respect and passion. A relationship without passion is lifeless and without respect is doomed.
A Loyalty to each other (self-sacrificing devotion, faithfulness and allegiance). Loyalty requires an understanding of needs and wants which can be understood only if you have honesty, courage, passion and respect.
