Clear values.
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Getting clear on your values

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Counselor.

Values clarification: what are your values?

By values, I don’t mean things like honesty, bravery, and thriftiness, those abstract qualities we used to attribute to good character or breeding. Those sorts of character values are fleeting and often appear in one situation and not another. What I’m talking about, when I say your values is much more concrete.

In group counseling, we often do an exercise called values clarification. We ask people what the most important thing is to them. We often got a range of answers depending on the population and where we were doing this exercise. Among the homeless or unemployed, the answers frequently are very basic things like housing or food. Some people say that what’s important to them is their job.

Other people will say that the most crucial thing in their life is a member of their family. This comes in the form of my son, my daughter, my husband or wife, my family, and often other relatives and members of their household. For some people, family is a matter of choice rather than genetics.

Eventually, we get around to more abstract qualities such as God, their spirituality or religion, happiness, and so on. If there were a lot of similar items, we combined them into categories. My son, my daughter, and my parents might become family. Physical and mental health can be combined into a single category called health.

Each person gets to make two suggestions, and once all the suggestions are written on the whiteboard, the voting begins. Each individual is given three votes and is encouraged to pick the three most important things on the board, not simply vote for what they had said.

What almost invariably happens is that the very concrete things, like food, a car, and even a house, get relatively few votes. The things that rise to the top invariably are more abstract. Religion, spirituality, family, and physical and mental health get the most votes. Having a lot of money or a fancy car doesn’t cut it if you have nothing to believe in and no one who cares about you.

Do values have anything to do with success?

Actually, values have a very large amount to do with success and being or feeling successful. One of the problems with success is that it very much depends on how you measure it. If you view success as having a lot of money that anything less than reaching that goal makes you feel unsuccessful. But if you value your relationship with your partner children working more hours and making more money take you farther and farther away from the value you hold most dear.

Some people equate success with reaching your goals.

To the extent that the goals you set in life reflect your basic values, than reaching those goals makes you a success. The problem here is to be very sure that your definition of success matches the values that are important to you.

I’ve written quite a few blog posts about success. Forty-four of them so far to be exact.

Some people set their goal in life to accomplish something great.

If you value your accomplishments, being a great artist or scientific researcher then you have set one of your life values as measuring yourself by what you do rather than who you are.

I’m not judging whether this is right or wrong but I think it’s important for you to get clear that you have made accomplishment a value rather than relationships.

  Part of life is balancing competing values.

Most people value more than one thing. Having a great job or a successful career is certainly desirable but not if it comes at the expense of your relationships, your physical or mental health. Achieving balance between your competing values is a lot more than just focusing on a work-life balance.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

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