Your values play an essential role in your life. Not only do they serve as guides for all you do, but they also impact your ability to create the results you desire. However, if you have a value conflict, your values may hinder your growth and success.
Let me explain. Before I do, though, let me ask you: Do you know your values?
Do You Know What You Value?
Many people never think about values, so you aren’t alone if you have no idea. And even more people don’t consciously operate based on values even if they have identified them.
It’s not hard to discover your values, though. Start by asking yourself, “What do I value?” Said another way, “What is important to me?”
With a bit of thought, you’ll have a list in no time. For example, you might value family, health, growth, fun, or spiritual connection.
Once you’ve written down your values, narrow them down to your top 10. Then go through the list and determine which ones you would give up first…and last. You can ask, “If I had to give up one value, which would it be?”
Continue this line of questioning until you are left with one value. Next, add to this value the last two you relinquished. Now you have a list of your top three values.
How Values Guide You
Now, let’s get back to the discussion of value conflicts.
Imagine that you value contribution. Therefore, you might focus your time and attention on building a coaching business or some other type of service-oriented company. For this post, let’s use the coaching business as an example.
You already have a small coaching business that allows you to express your value of contribution. Yet, you want to expand the business to contribute to additional people. After all, the more people you serve as a coach, the more impact you have on them. As a result, you also impact your client’s families, businesses, health, and relationships. You and your business cause a ripple effect in the world.
Let’s add another value—prosperity.
The success of your coaching business aligns nicely with the value of prosperity. Consider that the more people you serve, the larger your income grows. Thus, expanding your business makes sense. And when you provide a valuable service to others, they gladly invest in what you offer. So contribution leads to prosperity.
You likely realize that using these two values—contribution and prosperity—as your guides could ensure you do what’s necessary to create a thriving coaching business. If you act per your values, your business should expand almost magically, right?
Not necessarily.
How a Value Conflict Occurs
Let’s add another value to the mix: freedom.
What if your third top value is freedom. No problem, right?
Correct, unless you believe a more significant coaching business or success, in general, will result in less freedom. After all, if you are busy coaching and your business grows, you won’t have time to pursue your hobbies, be with your family and friends, or take vacations, right? So your business will tie you down.
What you want is the freedom to do what you want when you want—especially if you have the money to do so. And you don’t want managing your money to become another thing to do either.
You continue to work hard to grow your coaching business, but nothing seems to work. That leaves you wondering why your business isn’t growing and your income level remains the same despite your efforts to increase both. You are doing all the things necessary—and being guided by your values, but you don’t see the desired results.
Why? Your third value—freedom—conflicts with the other two—contribution and prosperity. It doesn’t have to conflict, though. It does because you believe a thriving business will curtail your freedom. Thus, you don’t increase your degree of contribution, build your business, and raise your income level to retain more freedom.
Do You have a Value Conflict?
How do you know if you have a value conflict? First, identify the areas of your life where you struggle the most.
Second, list your top three values related to those life arenas. They may be the same as the top three you discovered in the exercise above or different ones.
It’s possible you aren’t expressing your values in these areas, which hinders your results. Or your values might be in conflict.
If you are expressing your values and using them as guides but not seeing results, dig into your beliefs around what you desire. For instance, maybe you value health and fitness as well as ease or comfort but believe working out and eating a healthy diet is hard and uncomfortable. Therefore, you don’t work out or eat healthy foods. Your value conflict prevents you from taking action or getting desired results.
How to Resolve a Value Conflict
So what do you do if you think you have a value conflict or want to determine if you do?
1. Uncover the beliefs you have related to your values.
What beliefs do you have about your values? In the coaching business example above, the belief related to freedom was: “I will lose my freedom if I build a large, successful business.” Said another way, it might be, “I can’t be prosperous and free simultaneously.”
Once you know your beliefs, you can evaluate if they put your values in conflict. The beliefs you have about your values create the conflict, not the values themselves.
2. Change your belief.
To resolve the conflict, change the conflicting beliefs about your values. For example, you might choose to believe, “With prosperity comes freedom.”
Or you might believe, “The more I contribute, the more my level of prosperity grows, which makes it possible for me to increase my level of freedom.”
Here’s a shorter version: “Large levels of contribution and prosperity afford even higher levels of freedom.”
These may sound like affirmations to you and could be used that way. However, if you repeat them to yourself often enough, you will rewire your brain to believe them. And then your value conflict will disappear.
3. Reconcile your values.
If your beliefs are too strong to change or hard to reinterpret, look for people with similar values but succeeding anyway. Their values are not in conflict, even if they are the same as yours.
Find examples of people who share your values but have no conflict or people who seem to be creating a life based on similar values but doing so without issue.
For instance, using our previous example, find a coach who has developed a large, thriving business and has loads of free time. This person is contributing, prospering, and enjoying life; therefore, they prove you can do the same. Your values do not need to conflict.
Notice how they reconcile any value conflict and consider how you might do the same. For instance, maybe they hire staff to help run a thriving, prosperous business. Could you do the same?
Brainstorm ways to grow your business so you contribute at a higher level and increase your income while still having the freedom you value. How can you do what you want and not have your values conflict?
Use this process no matter your goal. You could use it to get fit and healthy, for example, and to do so with ease and comfort.
Your Beliefs Conflict, Not Your Values
It is possible to resolve a value conflict. In fact, if you look closely at your values and your beliefs about them, you’ll realize there is no conflict.
Any value conflict is just in your mind…and you can change your mind.
Your beliefs can be changed so your values align perfectly. Then you can commit to being guided by your values and allowing them to help you achieve the desired results.
Have you had or resolved a value conflict? Tell me in a comment below. And please share this post with a friend or on social media.
If you want to increase your ability to develop beliefs that support you, let’s chat. Get on my calendar here. Or join the Inspired Creator Community for group personal and spiritual growth coaching every month.
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