Moving from goal-based living to values-based living
Photo by Earl Wilcox on Unsplash
Graduate from school, get a job, get married, buy a house, have children, climb the corporate ladder and then retire. Once upon a time, I thought these were the goals I had to achieve to succeed in life.
I actually never made it past get a job on that map. I'm not too concerned about owning a house, I've deliberately pulled myself out of the rat race, I have no yearning to be married, I have no intention of having kids and I'm not dreaming about retiring — not that there's anything wrong with any of those things. Some of it can be beautiful. But to me, it was like someone handed me a script and told me: just play the part. My response? "Thanks for the offer, but I'll pass. I can co-create a better story."
In our society, we grew up believing a set of assumptions about life and what makes it worth living. These assumptions came into being based on limited perspective. Often, we don't stop to question these assumptions. Is achieving goals really what we should all strive towards? Of course! You might protest. We can't all just lay on a sofa all day watching Netflix and browsing TikTok. Everyone should be a productive member of society. And competition leads to progress.
I wonder what makes some people think that if our society wasn't so goal-oriented, most people would spend their lives lounging around like seals on a beach, leeching off social services? Is there concrete evidence of this?
Perhaps that hypothetical idle citizens scenario could be a possible if our society failed to cultivate the human spirit by helping individuals to recognize their own values, realize how those values align with a broader, ever-evolving collective values and the needs of our times, attune sensitively to the world they live in, recognize and develop their inner strengths and resources, and listen to the stirrings of one's soul. I can see how being idle would be possible if, instead of offering those things I had just listed, our systems encouraged people to follow a predetermined path and adopt a consumer mindset that leads them to believe life has value when they can acquire and consume more things, thereby weakening their capacity to imagine and create new possibilities. We have to ask ourselves what conditions make certain scenarios more probable than others. What perspectives foster certain attitudes.
In her book Permission to Come Home, Dr. Jenny Wang defines values-based living as living your life from a set of core values focused on the person you believe you are and the person you would like to become. Living a values-based life requires us to tap into our creativity. It's not about focusing primarily on external outcomes.
What if instead of trying so hard to find a career to fulfill you, you focused your time and energy on becoming more of the person who loves doing certain things because it aligns with your core values, within or outside a career context? And then, one day, an opportunity comes to you because it fits who you've become so well? Let that sink in.
What do you care about? What's important to you? What makes it so important to you? What are you doing in your life that shows people you care about this thing? What difference would spending time on what you care about make for you and the people around you? It may be helpful to reflect on these questions from time to time as our values evolve as we grow over time.
Living a values based life doesn't mean that we stop setting goals. It just means our goals no longer serve the function of giving us our next dopamine hit. Everything in our life unfolds within a larger context which give it meaning, whether we achieve some goals or miss others. We get our butts off the sofa and spend our time doing what we do not because we should, but because we just can't help being who we are.