Our experience of life is our own creation. We create our experience of life through our thoughts, what we pay attention to and how we perceive and interpret things.
So how do we decide what we pay attention to? How do we interpret things and how do we perceive things? Well, some of the main components of that process are our beliefs and our values.
Our Values Are a Part of Our Beliefs
Basically, values are also kind of beliefs, because they determine what we believe to be important to us. And, as such, our values very much determine what we pay attention to and what we leave out of our whole experience.
If there is something happening around us and we feel it is not important to us, we tend to just ignore it. On the other hand, what we feel is important to us, we pay attention to. In addition, we interpret and distort all kinds of events and things around us according to our idea or belief of how important they are.
The Hierarchy of Values
We also have a hierarchy of values, meaning that there are some things that we think are more important than other things. Being aware of your own hierarchy of values is very useful, especially when it comes to making decisions on different situations.
So if you know what is most important to you and make decisions accordingly, not only will it make decision making easier for you, but it also gives you the sense of fulfillment in your life.
If you want to find out your hierarchy of values, I recommend that you read my book, Your Own Blue Ocean, where I give precise instructions on how to do that.
Many of my clients, by the way, feel that becoming aware of their hierarchy of values is one of the most important things that they have done in my coaching.
How You Spend Your Time Matters
In my new book, Words of Wisdom, chapter seven is about values and beliefs.
Since the next chapter in the book, and my next blob post, is about beliefs in general, let’s concentrate on the values here. I would also like to share a quote from the book. Like in this chapter, there are quite a few quotes from wise people in this book.
The one that I have chosen here is from Lauri Järvilehto, a Finnish philosopher:
So values also give us motivation and sense of well-being.
It is one of the factors that defines our meaning and purpose. Furthermore, when your goals and your vision are in line with your values, you should feel great motivation to do whatever daily activities you do.
And really, like Lauri Järvilehto here said, getting up in the morning feeling excited and thinking, “Yeah, it’s going to be a great day because I’m doing things that I appreciate and value!”
So values are kind of beliefs that we feel are important to us, we believe are important in our lives. And therefore, they largely determine how we filter information, how we perceive things around us, and thus are a very important part on how we create our experience of life.
