Exercises for Defining and Living Your Values
“Values can’t just be words on a page. To be effective, they must shape action.”
Just like Jeffrey Immelt says, for our values to make a difference in our lives they must shape action. This section is the most important piece of this module because this is where you will practice putting your values into action. We have collected some of the best exercises for defining and living your values. Take a look and pick out the ones that resonate most with you, and then practice them by doing your own 21-day personal experiment.
Exercises for Defining Your Values
Common Values checklist
Oftentimes it can be difficult and overwhelming to figure out what values are most important to you. If this is your experience, don’t worry, this is pretty common. This exercise provides you with a list of 81 common values that you can narrow down until you identify values that resonate most with you. Follow this link to see the list of values and their definitions.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MhrGMiMmYE8UR23eqXWuA9U27h68yjNh/view?usp=sharing
Your Mistakenly Held Funeral (Adapted from Act Made Simple (2nd Ed), Harris, 20XX, p. 219)
“Imagine that you’re a bit like Tom Hanks’s character in the movie Castaway. You’re on a place that crashes in the ocean, and you’re completely unharmed, but you get stranded on a deserted island in the middle of the sea. Meanwhile, back home, everyone thinks you’re dead, and they hold a funeral. A few weeks later, you get rescued, and you fly home to a happy reunion. Sometime later, you get to watch a video of that funeral. As you’re watching it, you see someone you love very much (perhaps your parent, partner, child or best friend) walk up to the microphone at the front of the funeral parlor, and start talking about you. What would you love to hear that person saying about the sort of person you were? What about your strengths and qualities? What about the way you treated them?” (p. 219).
At funerals, it is common to discuss the character of a person–and values are often the colloquial language we use to describe exactly who a person was. Envisioning this scenario may give you additional insight into what really lies at the core of who you want to be, and which values will help in this process. Pondering upon which values you want to be remembered for and defined by in this regard may spark additionally useful insight.Imagine your 80th Birthday (Adapted from Act Made Simple (1st Ed.), Harris, 20XX)
Imagine that at your 80th birthday party, three different people stand up to make speeches about you. And keep in mind, this is a fantasy—an imaginary exercise—so it doesn’t have to follow the rules of logic and science. You can be eighty, but your friends may look exactly as they do today. And you can have people there who are already dead, or who’ll be dead by the time you’re eighty. And if you want to have children one day, then you can have your children there. Also keep in mind, you aren’t trying to realistically predict the future. You’re creating a fantasy—if magic could happen so that all your dreams come true—then what would your eightieth birthday look like? So if your mind starts interfering and saying things like, “People don’t mean what they say at these events” or “No, that person would never say that about me”, then just say “Thanks, mind” and come back to the exercise.
So it’s your eightieth birthday, and everyone who truly matters to you ... friends, family, partner, parents, children, colleagues ... anyone and everyone whom you truly care about, even if they’re no longer alive, is gathered there in your honor. This might be a small intimate affair in a family home or a huge affair in a classy restaurant ... it’s your imagination, so create it the way you want it ... Now imagine that one person whom you really care about—friend, child, partner, parent, you choose—stands up to make a speech about you ... a short speech, no more than three or four sentences ... and they talk about what you stand for in life ... what you mean to them ... and the role that you have played in their life ... and imagine them saying whatever it is deep in your heart you would most love to hear them say.
[The therapist now repeats this for two other people—always allowing the client to choose who will speak—and each time allowing forty to fifty seconds of silence for reflection.]
Therapist: Most people find that this exercise brings up a whole range of feelings, some warm and loving, and some very painful. So take a moment to notice what you’re feeling ... and consider what these feelings tell you ... about what truly matters to you ... what sort of person you want to be ... and what if, anything, you’re currently neglecting. (Pause 30 seconds.)
What happened? What did people say about you? What does this tell you about what matters to you, what you want to stand for, and what sort of person you want to be?
The Life Compass
This exercise is meant to help you determine what things act as your life compass. It will help you understand what is important to you in different areas of your life. and how well you are doing at living those values right now. Follow this link to access the exercise and its instructions.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WANQoE5yDptsF9tG9a7D0sF8zJc6Sm1R/view
Billboard exercise
You may be familiar with the popular “values” or “pass it on” billboards, which have commonly been posted on the sides of freeways. These billboards seek to highlight a particular value that a well-known societal figure embodied in their lifetime.
Take a look here for more examples. As you browse, think about yourself for a moment. If you could pick one word that defines the type of person you want to be and what you want to be remembered for, what would it be?
Exercises for Living Your Values
Setting Value Based Goals
First, let’s pick a value and evaluate how connected you feel to it. How often do you practice said value with your family, at work, or with friends? How good are you at applying said value to your job, school, or recreation? Take some time to reflect which value you feel the most out of touch with. Which values do you think are the most important to start working on as soon as possible (Harris, 2008)?
Now that you have a value you want to work on, go through these steps here.
Summarize the values you want to work on
Write an immediate goal. Something you can do now or tomorrow. Make sure it is a specific goal: not “I am going to be more social” but instead “I am going to talk to one of my co-workers during my lunch break” Immediate goals can increase confidence in yourself.
Make short term goals. Think of a few goals you can set over the next few days or week to increase your desired value. Plan what, when, and where you’ll do this action. If you value family, then make a goal of visiting or calling your family over the next few days.
Make medium term goals. Make goals you can accomplish over the next few weeks or month. If you value self-sufficiency, then make a goal to save money or go to a self-sufficiency course over the next few weeks.
Set long term goals. Make goals you can achieve over the next year or next few years. How could you be living more aligned with your values? How can you challenge yourself to live according to your values? Think big, dream big. This could be moving houses, traveling the world, or even saving a certain amount for your retirement funds.
Flavor and Savor
Pick one or two values you would like to work on each morning before you leave the house (Harris, 2019). Feel free to either choose new values each morning or pick new ones. As you go about your day, look for opportunities to “sprinkle” those values into whatever you may be doing or saying (Harris, 2019). This will give your actions a bit of the flavor of your values. As you flavor it, savor it. Notice the effect that living these values will have on your life or the lives of others and appreciate the difference. Maybe as you practice humor you will notice you are laughing more or as you practice compassion you feel more love from those around you.
Bullseye (Open access through actmindfully.com.au)
To complete this exercise, first draw a bullseye target. At the center of the target write down a word representing a value that you hold. Next, picture in your mind what your life would look like if you were living that value fully. What would you be doing? How would you spend your time? Who would you spend time with? Next, think about the life you are living right now. Does the way you are living match the picture in your mind of what your life would look like if you were fully living this value? The closer your behavior matches the life you wish to live, the closer you move to the center of the bullseye. Draw a mark on the target representing where you are at currently. Next, set some goals for how you will move closer to the bullseye in the next week. If you are having trouble setting effective goals, refer to this section of the personal growth module to learn how.
Follow this link if you’d like a printout of this exercise:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A1VmmCUgv7RbSWhsGfD-FNAvR_C4_TBv/view
Values Square Worksheet (Open access through actmindfully.com.au)
When starting a new behavior, it can often be helpful to review your recent progress and make a plan for the near future. This exercise helps you identify values in four important areas of life (work, love, health, and play), review how you’ve put those values into play in the past week, and make plans for how you will put them into play during the coming week. Follow this link to the values square worksheet. Also, if there are other areas of life, such as spirituality or family, that you wish to do include in this practice, please adapt this exercise to include them!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uJ5FiEgNq54rvnJusKJzcfV56rp1PL9W/viewWeekly Values Planning
At the beginning of the week, review your values and pick a couple that you’d like to emphasize this week. For each value, consider “What would it look like for me to really live this value this week?” Now deliberately plan out several actions or activities you can do this week, and build them into your schedule. Importantly, during or right after these activities, pay close attention to how it feels for you to be living these values.