Personal Values? — You Got It All Wrong
Self-help psychobabblers forget to share these.
Self-reflection is a beautiful thing often used to sell you crappy advice. This is unfortunate but true.
You’ll recognize a potential threat when you play a video of someone trying to sell you your true self while they haven’t even met you…
Personal values stand at the center of this sales process.
You know, the values such as “dependability”, “understanding”, “kindness”, “creativity”.
However, “your values” are not only influenced by the videos, but by social values in general. There’s media, culture, religion, influencers, gurus, vampires, and monkeys. They all have influence over you.
This whole “influence play” is a chaotic dance between external and internal forces. Influences that slowly and continually make small changes within.
Small changes that end up having a significant impact.
What are your personal values?
There are two important definitions we’ll have to understand before going any further. Bare with me.
“Value systems are prospective and prescriptive beliefs; they affect the ethical behavior of a person or are the basis of their intentional activities.” — Wikipedia
“Values can be defined as broad preferences concerning appropriate courses of actions or outcomes. As such, values reflect a person’s sense of right and wrong or what “ought” to be.” — Wikipedia
Here, an easy explanation.
Personal values are beliefs that affect your actions.
They are your personal moral compass that is always influencing your decisions.
Let’s dive into some things I wished someone pointed out to me earlier…
#1 Your perceived values are hurting you
If you ever dived into the depth of your own psychology, or read the few self-help articles, you have most likely thought of your own personal values.
Even corporations and CEOs are popping out of cans talking about value systems.
You might have even engaged in the practice of writing these down. Maybe you thought of some really good ones. Or you’ve listened to a person you admire, got inspired, and copy/pasted values down on a sheet as if they were yours.
What is wrong with this?
It didn’t start with you.
What you have most likely done, and it’s not necessarily bad, is you created perceived values. Values that came up from wishful thinking or expectations.
A wish derived from what you thought would be nice to have. What media has served you, or what your friends or parents want you to be.
You consciously thought about what traits would suit you well. The bad part is that values are not jackets. You can’t just borrow or buy these.
There are PERCEIVED values and REAL values.
How are your perceived values hurting you?
The perceived values are not your enemy. However, if left in delusional disguise these can severely affect your self-image.
The reason is that you carry REAL personal values you are not conscious of or refuse to accept. Maybe the ugly ones, or not-so-popular ones...
You eventually end up with a problem.
The problem is that you act based on your real values, but you judge yourself by perceived values.
The result? Your mind is constantly in a state of cognitive dissonance.
A state that in this case causes self-pitying, judgment, anger, frustration, and other feelings. Emotions automatically burst from your temper if you keep doing this to yourself.
Please meditate on the following.
What you consider to be your personal flaws might be just you acting out of tune with your perceived values.
Again, if you are not acting in synchronicity with your perceived personal value, it’s not your value. So, you are blaming yourself for something that is not even your belief.
At least not yet.
#2 Admit you have a few crappy values
So, what about the ugly ones you want to push under the carpet?
If you have a sudden rush of resentment, well… you might have a couple of nasty values. If you want to scream and yell at me, you might have a few more.
If you want to know what values these are, well… Jealousy, disinterest, laziness, fear, discouragement, superstition, control-freakism, doubting, etc. All will do just fine.
Here is something you should hear more often.
It is OK to have these shitty values!
It is normal. It is usual. Don’t run away from it.
We all have them. Accept them and start from there.
If you are truly aspiring to be a better human being, if you want peace of mind, accepting these traits and beliefs has the potential to free you.
Be aware, admitting this awakens an internal judge. At least it always does for me. The strict and moral judge that has an eye on every move you make.
The finger you long ago pointed at someone or something else, turns at you. You have to see the finger, gently place your other hand on top of it, and slowly lower it down.
And don’t forget that there are also good and beautiful innate personal values you have. Kindness, caring, etc… Maybe the traits and belief systems you never admitted to yourself. Maybe it wasn’t cool to have them or something…
Cherish these, show them to the world, multiply them by 1000! If there are courses, organizations, people, humanitarian actions, or aliens that share or could use these, go towards them.
If it’s really aliens, be aware of intergalactic interferences. These are nasty.
Remember the perceived values?
Ultimately, after acceptance, you can start working towards your perceived values if you happen to like these so much. But hopefully, you realized by now, values are not jackets.
#3 Stronger your values stronger the forces for and against you
Once you got the real values all settled down and acknowledged, you’ll begin noticing some heavy forces around you. If you decide to act in tune with your perceived values on top of that, the ones that feel right to you, the whole mess might start to erupt.
This is where all the value stuff starts to feel really uncomfortable.
By bringing awareness to your value systems you begin to feel more at ease with them. This means you’ll start to appreciate and take more actions based on these values.
Which finaly means, you’ll experience resistance and support more than ever.
Depending on how you approach this and what your personal traits are, it will manifest in different ways. But the forces will show themselves. Trust me, it’s not mumbo jumbo, it’s real.
Just take one of these for example- Mandela, LeBron, Hitler, Elon Musk, Gretta Tunberg, Jordan Peterson, Oprah, Conor Mcgregor, Michelle Obama, Kardashians, Daenerys Targaryen, Harry Potter, Gandalf, Elsa, your stubborn sibling…
Sorry for putting them all in the same bucket, I know you like Elsa better than Hitler. We all do.
But they all have one thing in common.
They have all experienced forces with and against them. Regardless if their value systems were shitty, awful, good, or extraordinary.
Forces are universal.
And don’t get me wrong, I encourage extraordinary and good. But I also expect the forces to drag me and punch me straight to my face. And you should too.
What should you take away?
Personal values are often a subject of discussion and I wanted you to get a slightly different perspective on it.
If you’ve never thought it through, I wanted this article to be a good opportunity to do so.
Go, discover the topic even more. Get different opinions and see what experts say.
But please, just don’t fall for the cheap tricks that only make you feel better in the moment. The tips and tricks that delay any real and important personal progress that comes from deep thinking.
