Our Internal Values Compass

Using your values to act as an internal compass to guide your responses and actions.

We all have inner thoughts and feelings and these range from issues that can cause us concern or happiness.  How we deal with our thoughts and emotions is particularly important if we are to succeed in both work and our personal life.

Please don’t think of chocolate sweets

As a little experiment, as you read this article, I don’t want you to think of chocolate sweets.  Whatever, you do for the rest of the day, don’t think of chocolate sweets or even eating them.

Thoughts, Emotions and Responses

We all communicate in many different ways and it is estimated that we speak around 16,000 words per day (Source – University of Arizona).  With our thought processes aligned to our speech, it is no wonder that we experience many emotions.

Paul Ekman labels our basic emotions in the following way:

All these thoughts and emotions also interact with our overall physiology to prepare our body for action and because we have so many, much of how we act is managed in an automatic way; otherwise we will not achieve much in our daily lives.

Our minds can often feel bombarded with so much information, that we find it difficult to take time to examine when we feel or to experience joy, opportunity fear, anger, amusement, achievement, etc.  We very often feel hooked by our emotions and like a fish caught on a line, being reeled further into that thought or emotion; and these very often are negative.

Using Values as your Compass

One way to disengage from so much information is to ask; what are my values? 

Rather than trying to distance ourselves from our thoughts and emotions – just like trying not to think of the chocolate sweets – try to deal with them in a ‘values-driven’ manner to assist you in dealing with the many stresses we all experience in personal and work life.

This means being clear about your personal values and using these to refer back to and validate if your thoughts, emotions and future actions are aligned to your values. Ask yourself, is this response aligned to my values or is it moving me away from them?

For example; as a parent or a carer your value may well be to spend time with your family and loved ones. However, your thoughts and emotions may be reeling you in by saying you need to spend more time at work to get that promotion.  By recognising that your ‘family’ value is what is important to you, it may be a lot easier to accept that work isn’t everything and to forgo the promotion.

So what are your values? 

So rather than getting reeled in by your difficult thoughts and emotions, the following steps may assist you to find stability and enjoyment in your life, whether at home or at work.

Here are just some which might assist you in getting started. 

Step 1 – Define your values

Once you have defined your values, pick one value that you want to focus on most.

When you are experiencing negative thoughts and emotions, ask are they serving this value?  If not, then, consider what actions you can take that are more consistent to this value.

Step 2 – Take action aligned to that Value

Recognise when you are stuck in a pattern of repeating similar behaviours that usually result with the similar outcome.

When we are faced with difficulties, anxieties, etc., we can all revert back to a normal pattern of behaviour which often sees us stuck in a familiar mindset.  Recognise when you are repeating similar patterns and then work out what changes you can make to achieve this value.

Step 3 – Label your thoughts and emotions

Recognise your thoughts and emotions for what they are – just a thought or an emotion. When you do this, you will start to realise that they are a bit like clouds.  They will blow in and blow out.

Think of these thoughts as data, which when analysed may or may not be helpful to you and may or may not be aligned to your value. 

Step 4 – Acceptance

Be open with your thoughts and emotions; experience them for what they are; be attentive to them as they may be indicating that something important is happening.

And finally, don’t think of those chocolate sweets!