Value conflicts are something I have some personal experience of and continue to work with. Your posts as well as How to be Rich and Happy have really helped me to identify them.

As we say in the UK.

Ta me duck!

Some part of me wants to include ‘grief’ on my values list, which makes absolutely no sense to me. Seems more like an antivalue to me! Still, it keeps insisting.

Can these values things be temporary? Like ‘you need to acknowledge there’s something in your life to grieve,’ not ‘you must focus your life to include AS MUCH GRIEF as possible, muhahahaa!’ Or even ‘there’s always something to grieve, don’t stuff that down?’

*confused*

Which leads me to an excellent opportunity to gush about how much I love your posts. :p

Some questions:
- When doing the value elicitation form, I get the same score for different values. For example a score of 4 for 2 values. Do you then go in and compare the two of them side by side? I tried to follow my intuition in deciding, and my intuition is apparently not THAT good at avoiding circular logic.

- How necessary is it to be accurate in your description of the values? I get that money is a tool, not a value, but can it be the other way around? That when I focus on X and Y, Z follows automatically so I don’t have to focus on it? And, in that case, are X and Y the tools and Z the value or are X and Y the values?

- Am I seriously overthinking this? :p

Thanks again, great series.

@ Sid – I think that’s a fair point. As long as motivation isn’t based in revenge or greed then what gets us to act is usually a good thing.

@ SF – Yes it definitely does make sense, although it may require a book! When I work with clients after the first intake session, the 2nd session is values (usually) and then all the other work is based on what stems from that.

I’ll give it some thought, but also say this. Most people once they know their values can see the areas where they need to make changes to live in alignment with them.

The whole family thing is a whole different ball game and I’m not sure if being in the middle of a 3 week stint with the in-laws staying I know the answer to that.

I was reminded of something Jack Kornfield the Buddhist teacher once said yesterday. “If you think you’re enlightened, go and stay with family for a few days”

@ Cath – They do indeed and you’re welcome.

@ Carl – You’re right about the unconscious thing. I made a decision to tell people to bat through quickly rather than having to right another 1,000 words explaining the resoning behind it.

Of course that is covered off in more depth in How To Be Rich and Happy as all this is. And it’s for a great cause. Wa-hey!

@ Chris – Maybe throw in an acnhor or two as well and you’re good to go!

@ Rosalind – Maybe the real value is integrity and not honesty? That may not be the case, but I do think that it’s possible to demonstrate integrity whilst telling lies. In your case what you learned to do had the best intentions and imho that made it a positive thing even if it didn’t quite feel right at the time. Thanks for sharing.

After spending a lot of time searching deep down and re-visiting my ‘negative/self-defeating beliefs’ it all came to me!

I had a very cruel, sadistic, mean-spirited father who promised that we’d NOT get a thrashing IF we told the truth! Well, the truth never did sound plausible enough and we’d end up getting a thrashing anyhow UNTIL … we (us 5 children) learned to manipulate the ‘truth’ in such a manner that he believed this as the ‘truth’ and so we avoided getting the punishment … too often this ‘telling of truth’ meant that one of the other siblings was used as the scapegoat and THEY ended up getting the thrashing which NONE of us deserved.

Has this change ‘honesty’ as being one of my ‘values’? Not at all, but I am now aware of the internal tug-of-war and am becoming far better at being honest in an ‘honest’ way!!!

Now I have my lists I can motivate myself to motivate myself, if you know what I mean…

Cheers,

Chris

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