Finding Meaning and Motivation Through Values-Based Living
Finding meaning in our unprecedented world can be challenging. Many of us are living in survival mode, just doing our best to get by. We don’t believe we have the time to regroup and reflect on what matters most. One approach to improving mental health is learning what values are most important to you and incorporating them into activities in your life. This helps people to feel fulfilled in their lives and can help them find their purpose.
What is Values-Based Living?
Value-based living is a way to approach life where people live their lives closely aligned with their core values. This approach teaches people to make decisions based on their values instead of allowing other factors to influence their decisions. Values can help people make hard decisions or cope with difficult life changes.
How Values Help Mental Health
Living with our values in mind can help people to feel more confident in their decisions. Aligning with our values also helps to give people a greater sense of life purpose and reduce stress levels. All of these are beneficial for improving mental health, too. On the other hand, not being aligned with our values can result in a lack of motivation, burnout, and mental health symptoms.
How to Find Your Values
Finding out what your specific values are can be done in many different ways. People may consider reflecting on things that are important to them, through journaling or discussing their values in therapy. Therapists may then help their patients identify what values are most important to them. Some examples of values are creativity, freedom, honesty, and community. Someone might create a list of people they look up to and identify the values they seem to live by.
How to Live Your Values
After someone figures out what their values are, they can begin incorporating them into their lives as a way to improve their mental health. You can start integrating your values by adding small behaviors that are related to them. It’s important to start small so that you don’t overwhelm yourself with changes. For example, if your value is connection, you can try reaching out to a family member or friend. After some time of integrating values, you may learn that certain values are more important than others. You can play around with which values are most important to you and which you may need to change. Reflecting whether alone or in therapy can help determine the values that will be best to keep. We can also use goal-setting with our values to set meaningful goals. These goals can be the guides that drive our motivation and activities.
Living your life with your values in mind is a great way to live a fuller life and improve mental health. When people can connect with their values, they have a greater sense of purpose and resilience to life’s hardships. Value-based living helps people to live lives filled with intention.
If you (or someone you love) may benefit from treatment, we are here for you! Reach out to us today if you are ready to start your healing journey.
References
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886924001405
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8802095/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666756824000692
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9530432/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6923189/
Keywords: value-based living, goal setting, mental health, life purpose