Living by your Values > Living by your Goals

Living by your Values > Living by your Goals

Values are the deepest desires of your heart—they provide a scaffolding for how you want to interact with others, yourself, and the world in general. Values are typically described as one-word “core virtues” or “ethics” that capture what a person wants their life to be about. They are meant to provide meaningful direction and joy along the way instead of putting emphasis solely on the outcome. In short, defining your values, learning to effectively live them, and actively refining them can be ways out of the incessant future-based goals mentality that can bog down our daily efforts.

Tips to Reduce Stress

Tips to Reduce Stress

Stress has been a constant companion in my own life, one that was often an unwelcome guest. I still remember my first efforts to eradicate it completely from my life, and much to no one’s surprise but my own, the attempt was largely unsuccessful. In trying to eat healthier, exercise, and drag my feet to get to bed at a decent hour, I was perplexed when my stress didn’t magically vanish. Instead, I felt like it added new stresses as I realized I wasn’t perfectly implementing my well thought out plan! What I didn’t realize at the time was that we will always have stress, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Let’s dive into positive and negative stress, how to change our outlook on it, and how to minimize bad stress in our lives.

A Recipe for Flow

A Recipe for Flow

Do you enjoy what you do? If not, is it rewarding in some other aspect? No one pays me to cook. I genuinely enjoy learning new recipes, even if they are a lot of hard work, because it means I have learned something new that I can use in the future. You don’t even have to feel joy or satisfaction to have flow. In fact, flow isn’t even meant to be fun. It is meant to foster growth.

You've Got a Friend

You've Got a Friend

Have you ever reflected on the number of people you’ve met throughout your life’s journey? Try to think of an exact number. Most likely, your head hurts from trying to do this–we come across a myriad of people every day by simply stepping outside our door. Now, how many people would you say you can really count on, those people who would drop everything to help you jumpstart your dead car battery or move into your new house? The number of people you thought of in response to my first question probably decreased significantly, but I’d venture to say that the actual significance of the people you thought of in response to my second question increased. Although we may have unique reasons for why we admire a certain friend, research suggests that compared to each other, we all can reap similar benefits of friendship.

Experiential Avoidance

Experiential Avoidance

Experiential avoidance is an unwillingness to remain in contact with distressing internal experiences and attempting to control or avoid these distressing internal experiences (Hayes-Skelton & Eustis, 2020). Essentially, it’s avoiding specific memories, thoughts, or feelings, because we don’t want to face the potential pain that comes with them. It’s something that we are all tempted to do at some point.

Body Appreciation

Body Appreciation

Our bodies are a precious gift that we only get one of. With this knowledge, why is it so difficult to be satisfied with our bodies? Body satisfaction through weight loss is the motivation for many people when they begin an exercise routine. If we head to the gym daily simply to fit into our favorite jeans or be ready for the beach this summer, will we have the same positive effects of body appreciation and happiness?

Finding Purpose in Your Career Decision

Finding Purpose in Your Career Decision

“Do what you love.” seems to be a piece of advice regularly given to college student decision makers—you know what I’m talking about. I’m sure your Uncle John was just telling you this at the annual family reunion. However, such advice is usually paired with the expectation that “what you love” is something prestigious, lucrative, and exciting. This counsel, rather than being helpful, might lead further questions to emerge in students’ minds: “What do I love?” “Is what I love going to make me a lot of money?” “Will what I enjoy be flexible enough to manage with my family?” The stress and indecisiveness remains. “What should I do?” continues to be the ever-prevalent question.

Overcoming Roadblocks with Values

Overcoming Roadblocks with Values

Remember how your values are like a compass? Just like how a compass has a north and south, some actions will direct you towards your values, and others will direct you away from your values. According to ACT made simple (Harris, 2019), “towards moves” are anything that brings you in the direction that aligns with your values. “Away moves” are any action that leads you away from your values. Away moves are going to be the biggest challenge of living a value-based lifestyle. The Engagement Module addresses toward and away moves really well, so I will only give a brief description of away moves here.

Adventurous Living

Adventurous Living

Adventurous living leads us to cope with adversity, take healthy risks, embrace uncertainty, cultivate optimism for positive outcomes, meet disappointments with resilience, and live every experience with increased openness and vitality while deliberately seeking further experiences. Both those who learn to be more adventurous and those who are naturally adventurous experience greater psychological well-being in various areas. Most importantly, adventurous living can be fostered by anyone, at any time, without extreme measures.

When Forgiveness is needed, Compassion is required

When Forgiveness is needed, Compassion is required

There is a strong relationship between forgiveness and compassion. We all have had experiences where we have felt hurt by the wrongdoings of others. How will we react? Will we try our best to just forget it? Will we suppress the feeling until “it goes away”? Will our pride get in the way of accepting that we need to forgive? These are just a few examples of what some of our thoughts might look like before beginning the process of forgiveness. It can be really hurtful and painful to feel that you have been wronged, but at the end of the day, it’s our choice to decide what we will do next. This is when compassion comes in.