Aligning values with actions

As I've stated time and again, I love learning. I loved college, I love reading, I love certification tests, I love everything about it (okay, except finals).

I found this really cool platform where you can take online classes on all kinds of subjects - you can learn Mandarin, learn to be more resilient, learn about nutrition, anything you want. You can pay for classes, or you can audit them! Best day ever! I signed up for a couple, and I'm loving it so far.

One thing I learned from a recent lecture was about aligning your values with your actions. Here's an excerpt:


"We identify specific behaviors that we want to engage in that enable us to live consistent with who we want to be. But it's another thing to actually stay committed to engaging in those behaviors. For example, we can take the love to be a volunteer. Many people believe and have a value of volunteer work, but when we really break down to it, people aren't spending time volunteering. They're not engaging in the behavior. So they're not committing to that action. So a really essential component to being a resilient person is to go from values to value statements identifying specific behaviors and actions you can take to living consistent with them. And it's the next thing to actually staying committed to doing what matters most. So we have to do commitment check-ins if you will. And that is reflecting on our core values, really self-reflecting on the behaviors we're engaging in, and looking at the alignment. Are our behaviors consistent with who we want to be or is there a disconnect? And if there is a disconnect, what types of things are getting in the way of you being the person you want to be in whatever value domain it is? So the next part that is really essential, and this is the make or break to becoming a resilient person, and that is the commitment part, not only clarifying your values and identifying the actions, but staying committed to them."


I really like that. Do my values (fitness, serving people, family, learning, etc.) drive my actions? Do I spend my time on those things, or do I spend my time on things that aren't as important to me (Facebook, anyone?)?

Definitely something to think about :)