We value family and being together makes us happy little meerkats!
What do you value? Your values are the foundations of who you are. The more aware you are of your personal values, the easier it is to make a happy and fulfilling life. I see each value as a jigsaw puzzle piece and putting them all together makes the perfect picture of you. Do your values align with the way you are living?
Often, we hear people say that they value something, but in reality we can see that that is not how they are living. Their espoused values and their lived values don’t align. For example, someone may say they value family but in fact they spend very little time with them. When our espoused values and lived values are out of whack, we can feel unsettled, unsatisfied and unhappy.
When was the last time you took stock of your values? Are you living true to them or do you need to make some changes in your life to feel more authentic, satisfied and happy?
How do you figure out what your values are? Well that involves asking yourself some important questions. What makes you happy? What makes you feel proud? When do you feel connected? What satisfies you? I was a bit stumped when thinking about these things, so I made and A-Z list of my values. Once I got going it was quite easy. Some of my A-Z are probably not ‘values’ as such but they are important to me for example animals, gratitude, nature and random acts of kindness. Other traditional values of mine were things like balance, compassion, empathy and family oriented
What next…start living according to these values and use these values to make daily choices.
Life can be so much easier when you acknowledge your values and live by them. This involves making choices and really honoring those values. When you know and understand your values you can use them to make decisions about how you want to live your life and how to get the most out of your life.
What are your values and are you living them? Time to take stock and get aligned……time to choose happiness.
happyasapiginmud 
Some more so, some less so…
I would suggest most people are the same….the question is can we change the less so into more so??? xxx
I think when you’re aware of your values you automatically move towards the more so because the more you cross them, the more it doesn’t sit right – there’s a term for it that is eluding me at the moment. And the more you’re aware of it the more you’ll slowly change and gravitate towards living your values.
I love this post Michelle. This is something we should all do, maybe once at year ask ourselves “what are our values and are we truly living by them.” Sometimes life gets the best of us and we forget about our values and are not really living by them.
Inspiring and profound post, Michelle. We all have been given values that moves us forward in life so that we can all lead a happy and joyous life with each and everyone.
I agree…the challenge is recognizing those values and continuing to check in that you are living by them so we can move forward and be happy.
Yes and we have to recognize our values in life just cannot do anything that we like and harm others.
Hi Michelle, Eliza directed me over here and I can see why!
Love this post as it resonates deeply … I’ve said many similar things in my poetry but you have condensed that into the essential so succinctly here, well done!
Thank you to Eliza and thank you to you for popping in. Glad my post resonates. Cant wait to visit your site. Take care xxx
thanks so much, and thanks for the follow!