What Are Values
ACT for BeginnersValues are at the heart of the ACT model. They guide us as we go through life. They inspire us. They motivate us. And there are many different definitions of values. There's not one agreed definition. So values are the qualities I wanna bring to my actions right here right now in this moment and on an ongoing basis. With clients, I often describe them as your heart's deepest desires for how you wanna behave as a human being, how you really want to treat yourself and others and the world around you.
Goals are what I want to complete, achieve, have or owe, whereas values are how I wanna behave. So a goal is in the future. It's something I'm aiming for trying to get wanting to achieve, whereas a value is how I wanna behave right now, how I wanna behave every step of the way towards achieving my goal. I wanna behave if I do achieve my goal and how I wanna behave if I don't achieve my goal values are of fundamental importance in at least three ways. Firstly, they inspire us. When we get in touch with our values, we have all sorts of ideas about what we wanna do with our time in planet and how we want to treat ourselves and others.
And they motivate us. They motivate us to step out of our comfort zones and do the hard yacker It's an Australian term for hard work, but I prefer hard yacker, you know, do the hard yacker necessary to build the sort of life we want to face up to our fears to keep going even when our minds trying to talk us out of it and all sorts of uncomfortable emotions are arising. And last but not least, they bring a sense of fulfillment to our life. They enrich our experience with a sense of meaning and purpose. They make our lives meaningful. You can usually say your values in one word or two words, you know, loving or being loving kindness or being kind.
Fairness or being fair, honesty or being honest. If it requires more than two words, if it requires a whole sentence, it's probably not a value. It's a belief or an idea or an attitude or assumption or a rule of how to live your life. For example, thou shalt not kill, It's not a value. It's a commandment. It tells you what you can and can't do. You can't say it in one or two words.
The the values that are underneath that commandment or rule, something like loving or caring. It's not just enough knowing what your values are. We wanna translate them into goals and translate them into action plans, committed action.