Time and Values

One of the major reasons for clearly knowing your values is that you can prioritize your time more effectively. There are an infinite number of ways to spend each 24 hours, and without having a conscious idea of what you value, you most likely will just drift along doing whatever comes up. This was how I lived my life for the first 40 years or so. It is still a challenge for me to decide how to spend the hours of each day because drifting is second nature to me. However, since I try most days to decide based on what's the most important to me, my life goes more or less in the direction I most desire. For example, I am a "get it done" kind of person. But what's actually the most important to me are the people that I love. Left to my own instincts, I might never get around to spending time with people I love.

Values and Life

Some people say that our values are formed by the time we're seven years old or thereabouts. I think there's some truth to that but I know for a fact that some of them change because I've changed some of mine. Plus what I value changes in terms of my life circumstances. When I was raising children my values all centered around children. I'm quite a bit more self-centered now. I'm very focused on my health with the hope and/or expectation that that focus will lead to healing from the injuries I sustained in the wreck 3 1/2 years ago.

Some examples of common values: success, independence, elegance, peace, romance, integrity, security, spirituality, fun, justice, nature, beauty. If you're interested in a longer list, put "values" into your search engine. Spend a little time thinking about which of the values in the lists really move your heart at this time in your life. Spend a little more time thinking about which ones you think will move your heart throughout the rest of your life. While you're at it, ask yourself whether you know which values are the most important to the people you are close to. These exercises will go a long way toward picturing the life of your dreams.

Choices

How do you make choices? Have you ever thought about this? How do you decide what movie to see? What to order at a restaurant? What color to paint your kitchen? Which person to marry? Which job to take? Where to live? If you are like most people, you decide by how you feel, primarily. It may be that you don't really think about it much.

I didn't think about it much either until middle age when I realized that I was just reacting to whatever happened and making decisions on how I happened to feel at the moment. It occured to me that since my life is made up of the choices I make, choosing without thought - just by how I happen to feel - may not be a good idea. I would rather make choices based on my values and my life's purpose. It took me a lot of years to discover - or really even care - about my values or my life's purpose. Now that I know I try to remember to bring those along when I make choices. It may seem a little silly to use values and purpose to decide what to eat, but since my values and purpose align with health and enjoyment of life...well, you can see how that works.

There are a lot of ways to discover your purpose and values: A consistent practice of meditation. Reading books about values and purpose. Even Google can lead you to a lot of methods. Wouldn't you rather have a life built on real choice rather than chance?

Emotional barriers

It could be you are still struggling - even with building a foundation for having the life of your dreams, let alone being able to ask other people for help. There are a lot of possible reasons for this. But I would bet that the reason is an emotional problem - mostly likely based in unconscious beliefs that lower your self-esteem. It would be a rare person who didn't pick up some negative ideas about him/herself in childhood. So, now what to do?

It might be that therapy/counseling is needed. If you want to go that route, be sure you get a good therapist or counselor. Do your homework. Check the person out with other people. Google him or her. Do a preliminary interview. If you don't feel comfortable, look for someone else.

Or it might be that just doing some writing about your beliefs about yourself will enlighten you. You may be able to see that those beliefs are not true and are holding you back now.

Either way, if you feel stuck, do something to get unstuck! Remember this is your life! Why not have the life of your dreams?

Winners

Who do you know that gets things done...is living the life of his/her dreams and loving it? I hope you know several people like that. If you don't, it's time to find some! You can bet that they are getting enough sleep, eating well, and have people in their lives that love and accept them. You can bet that there's someone that listens to them, encourages them and helps in all kinds of other ways. You will need this. Also, see if you can find some good listeners - people who will listen to you gripe without giving you advice. You will need this too.

Spirituality and Finances

It would be so easy in this time when the world's finances are in trouble, to believe that it's a bad time to be trying to create the life of our dreams. Actually, it can be an opportunity to get serious about managing our own personal finances in a way that supports the life of our dreams. It's like anything else that needs cleaning up in our lives - we will need support, information, and a willing spirit.

What Kind of Help?

There are all kinds of help you can get from other people. One of the most important is to find someone who's good at getting things done. If your parents were not good at getting things done, you probably didn't learn how in school either. So, now you will need to find people who make decisions about what they want to accomplish, make a plan, and carry it out. Learn from them so that you can keep from being frustrated and discouraged when you try to accomplish something and run into obstacles.