Living with values

It’s easy to get wrapped up in goals, in finishing a project or getting to the next stage in life so that you don’t pay enough attention to how you got there. You can be #winning, but still have a niggling feeling deep in the under-the-bed darkness of your brain, that you’re not quite living how you want to be. 

Our values are at the heart of what we do at Zetteler and this year we’ve invested time and effort exploring how they shape our future and how we can embed them in every part of the business. As part of an environmental review, we went on a journey to reduce our use of single-use plastics and travelled to Milan Design Week by train rather than flying, and this summer we launched a new campaign and tool to fight for a more inclusive design industry, Design Can.

With so much uncertainty at the moment (hi Brexit!), values are even more important to remind us of who we are. In the next instalment of our essay series by clinical psychologist Dr Jessica Munafo, we discuss how living with values – being true to our vision of how we want to live our lives – is one of the most important steps towards happiness and fulfilment and suggest a few simple activities to get us back on track.

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How many of us behave as though our values were actually valuable to us? As though they were precious parts of ourselves that can be a source of great vitality, meaning and connection? As things that we can choose to privilege above the other drives that compete for our attention?

When thinking about values with my clients, I find that the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) approach really gets to the heart of this issue - about how to appreciate our values and be faithful to them when our heads have been turned. This form of talking therapy sees values as ‘chosen life directions’ rather than concrete goals, which means that they can be active during both the process and outcome aspects of our endeavours. They don’t lie somewhere in the imagined future; we can live our values now – and you can continue living them indefinitely. If one of your values is to be a loving person, you can start now and carry on for the rest of your life. 

Goals are useful for tracking our journey and providing a much-needed sense of achievement every now and then. But too much focus on goals can undermine us, too, hence why many of us will experience flatness or even a period of depression when we have finally attained a target, such as completing a degree or getting married, if it’s not connected to our greater aims.

Clinical psychologist and author Stephen C Hayes wrote in his 2005 book: “To live a valued life is to act in service of what you value rather than act in the service of pain reduction.” To our pleasure-seeking minds, this doesn’t sound very appealing! But Hayes argues that actually, the greatest pain we may experience comes from not living our lives whole-heartedly. True vibrancy comes from the joys and sorrows that arise from having your life be about what you really, really want it to be about. 

Reflecting on the psychological barriers to action often brings the phrase ‘Are you ready, willing and able to change?’ to my mind. For me, readiness is about not being afraid to step into an unknown future; willingness is about motivation to do something differently; and ability refers to the skills and resources that are available to you which will make change possible. Sometimes we are willing and able, but just scared of uncertainty. Sometimes we are ready and able, but a part of us simply doesn’t really want to move forward or give something up. Our busy, chattering minds can stand in our way as we tie ourselves in knots to avoid feeling uncomfortable. 

Here are a number of exercises that aim to help us focus on our values:

Write your epitaph

If you can tolerate the strangeness of this task, spend a few moments imagining your tombstone. Complete the sentence: ‘Here lies [your name]’ followed by the single inscription that you would want to be remembered by.

Spot value gaps

List your values (considering intimate relationships, family relations, parenting or caring roles, friendships, work, education and personal growth, leisure, citizenship and community, spirituality, physical health, ecology). Rate how important each value is (out of 10) and then how closely you live according to each value. The difference between how important and how manifested your values are will give you a sense of how far you are deviating from being wholehearted in your life. 

Ignore ‘should'

As you look through your values lists, be mindful of the ‘tyranny of the shoulds’. Values are not sticks to beat ourselves with, dry duties to follow or measuring tapes to assess ourselves with. Consider what clues your emotions might give you as to how meaningful or life-affirming your value statements are. A small shift in how you define them or phrase them can make a big difference to your ability to adhere to them – such as ‘I should avoid plastic’ versus ‘I will seek alternatives to plastic wherever I can’.

Let go of peer pressure

Similarly, be aware of how much your values are being skewed by social approval. A simple test to tap into this form of distortion is to ask yourself: ‘Would I still be doing this if no one knew about it?’ Social disapproval can be another source of discomfort which needs to be navigated. Stay true to yourself while being kind to others. 

Take time to plan

Spend time planning how you might be able to manifest your values more strongly. Setting realistic long-term and short-term goals might be helpful here, as well as reflecting on the bigger behavioural patterns that you might be trapped in. For example, you may set your intention to being more healthy, then find yourself breaking your diet plans, and then giving up in quite a dramatic way. It is possible to create a new pattern, such as: be more healthy, experience a lapse, adjust any unrealistic plans, continue being healthy.

Having more than one value (as we all do!) can feel overwhelming when it comes to planning. Think about potential alignments and clashes and be fair to yourself and others when it comes to confusing nuances. For example, in intimate relationships, people often lean towards wanting to be either ‘chilled or thrilled’. But it is possible to need both and your values might be different from your partner. These issues need to be negotiated. In social justice work, author and historian Ibram X Kendi reminds us that our behaviour/speech might sometimes be anti-racist but at other times be racist. Such is the complexity of humanity. When we deviate from our most treasured values, we need to attend to our internal compass, know that the path isn’t always straight and keep our eyes on the horizon.

Making space for your values to shine through allows you to keep your head in the clouds while your feet stay firmly on solid ground; a complicated but worthwhile balancing act. As Sirius Black of Harry Potter fame says: “The world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters. We’ve all got both light and dark inside of us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.”

Want to read more from gems from Jessica? Take a look at her piece on unconscious bias.