How to Figure Out What You Value: A Quick Guide
Mount Hood, Oregon
Following my previous blog post "On Determining What you Actually Value," a logical question might be: exactly how do you figure out what you value?
The answer to this question is not nearly as obvious as I originally thought it would be. I've personally been going round and round on this point for years and honestly, the answers and the process to attain them both still seem murky and non-linear. Maybe some psychologist out there has a much clearer, logical process to relate, but I can only share some of the things that have worked for me. (Know of a different process? Feel free to share it with me by shooting me a message on Instagram.)
Tool: Journaling
Most of the steps that I’ve taken toward self-discovery or internal awareness of any sort are connected to my journal. I’ve been journaling daily for many years now… enough that I’ve lost count and written an entire bookshelf filled with Moleskin journals. My journaling practice isn’t quite as regimented as my Outside 365 practice (currently outside day 887 at the time of this writing), but I do journal roughly 5-6 days per week, if not an even 7.
In my journal, I have the space to slowly unpack and analyze all sorts of potential ideas, problems, and their solutions in great detail over the course of days or weeks. Even if I’m not intentionally digesting an idea,. sometimes a topic will just stick in my mind, and I’ll slowly get to unpack it and circle back to it again and again and again. So naturally, when it comes to thinking about values, I’ll take to my journal and start brainstorming things that I think that I value, and then move from there.
This process could even include cross-examining things that I think that I value, and asking, "do I really value this thing as much as I want to believe? How am I living my everyday life—am I living in a way that's consistent with this value? If not, do I want to bring this value more to the fore, or should I leave it behind me and scratch it off of the list?"
Journaling might not be for everyone—some people process ideas better verbally than they do in writing. I’m a writer, so writing usually comes before any sort of verbal processing or even verbal sharing to my family and friends. But even for the verbally inclined, I think journaling can be very useful. When you see your thoughts on the page, it’s a little easier to look at them, critique them, and say, “huh, maybe I don’t actually agree with that thought after all."
Don't believe everything you think.
Method 1: Analyze your life, and see where you invest your time currently.
While of course this could happen in the context of journaling, it could also happen while hiking through the woods on a mellow trail, allowing your mind to tackle the difficult challenges that you present to it.
As you do this analysis, think about the ways that you spend your time right now. What takes up most of your time: is it your job? What do you Google at your desk when you’re supposed to be doing your job? What hobbies do you spend your limited free time on? Where do you go on the weekends?
Consider especially where you spend your money: what eats up most of your budget? What things do you spend your cash on that you’d consider non-essential, or above the basic necessities of food, shelter, etc.? What areas of your life do you not have a budget for, areas where you're always willing to spend without a second thought?
Method 2: Think about what you'd prefer to spend your time on.
As you think about the ways that you currently spend your time, consider the ways that you would prefer to spend your time if you had no commitments or constraints whatsoever. For many people, this step will be easy: what you wish you could do with your time and your life may feel painfully obvious.
However, some people may not have spent much time thinking in this direction. If this line of thinking is new to you, one way to get at it is Alan Watts' question: "What if money was no object?"
Or if you need to make the question a bit more concrete, consider Tim Ferriss's version: "What would I want to do, have, and be if I had $10 million in the bank?"
I personally like to ask myself: "What things would I keep on doing in my life if I didn't have to make money? What would I do more of if I didn't have to go to work? What do I spend my weekends doing?"
Critical Note: Not creating new values, simply identifying current values.
I want to note that of all the work that I’ve invested into analyzing values in recent years, I haven’t actually spent much if time trying to create new values for myself, or trying to decide if I should value something that I don’t actually value. Too often I think that we hear about values or goals or objectives that other people that we might idolize (like celebrities, best-selling writers, or celebrity-style CEOs) hold for themselves, and then decide that we should value what this other person seems to value.
Let’s be clear: I’m not writing this blog to convince you to value spending time outside, although it’s possible some of these articles could read that way. Instead, my goal is to help unpack and consider a value that many of us hold—connection to nature. This extended analysis will build upon an under-appreciated value and help turn that value into a way of life.
So as you identify your values, don’t be prescriptive, asking what should your values be… that can come later if you think your value list needs an overhaul. Instead, focus on what your values currently are right now.
As you go through this exercise, you might identify that some of the things you truly value aren’t being actualized in your life on a daily basis… and that’s where things start to get interesting.
Spend time with this.
I don’t think brainstorming a single list quickly in 15 minutes one morning is sufficient to fully identify the values that define your life. I think we all need to spend time with this, let our thoughts wander as we consider our values, creating free-form connections from our everyday realities to potentially grander thematic values that we might hold. And then come back to this topic again and again… over days, weeks, months, and years.
I definitely don’t claim to have this shit completely figured out, but I do hope that if I keep pressing in, I’ll gradually continue to gain more and more clarity into what I value, and how those values conflict with each other and conflict with life as I know it.
Further Reading
For further reading on this topic, I highly recommend one of my favorite writers: Mark Manson. He's written extensively on the topic—here's one article to get started. Also, his second book, Everything Is Fucked: A Book About Hope includes a deep dive into values.
Even More Crucial Tactics
Check out the other installments in the Crucial Tactics series here:
