Values – signify what is important and worthwhile. Values guide us in our day to day and major decisions. Values impact our actions, interactions, and the choice we make.
Beliefs – are thoughts, assumptions, through our understanding and knowledge we accept as our truths. Beliefs are formed out of experiences and what has been integrated into who we are and how we define the world around us.
Values – that which is highly important to us generally remain constant over time. However, the priority of a value can change relative to our life phase / focus. As an example: family as a value will have family always as important. However, as a teen and young adult the focus can be much more on our independence. Then as time proceeds and we marry and have children, family becomes the priority (again). As we mature it may be our passions or careers are taking front row seat. And then the cycle may come again where the primary focus is on family. Family has always been valued. The priority may shift from #1 to #2 or #3 at times.
Living by our values means we are aware of our values and we adjust the priority relative to our focus or life dynamic at the time.
Beliefs – we accept as being true. However as obvious examples of “not so true” are “the earth is flat” or “man cannot fly”.
Adjusting our beliefs can be challenging. We need to ask is the thought /perspective balanced and factual or is it extreme and inaccurate? What is the evidence, the facts? Do we believe it out of habit? Are our interpretations accurate? Are we looking at things out of context? Is our belief based on feeling and what is the source of those feelings?
We do not want to jump to conclusions or disregard important aspects. We want to explore our thoughts and look at the probability of the factual base.
If the beliefs are about us – “I cannot do that” or “I am too____” then asking what experience founded that belief helps. What other experiences contradict that belief? Are we thinking in all or nothing, always or never? Adjusting our beliefs or reframing creates options we can explore, practice, and then integrate into our belief system. Take “I cannot do this” to “I can try in small steps to see what I can do”.
Adjusting our values and beliefs is part of our everyday changing lives. We adjust our courses to enable us to live life fully.
What adjustments have you made in your values or beliefs? Share in the comments below. Let’s connect.