Larry Strawson asked: Every choice you have ever made and every decision that you have regretted comes back to a set of several core beliefs that many people refer to as their personal values. Your values weren’t developed overnight and although outside influence plays a major role much of your values were determined by your own internal perception. Over your lifetime you have seen, heard, felt, and experienced certain situations and conditions that have helped shape your beliefs to what they are today. Your values are the foundation to your entire being and are subconsciously a part of your everyday life in one way or another.
Generally most people do not purposely choose their values, most of them are learned subconsciously as children before the age of 10. Studies have shown that a child’s social surroundings are the heaviest source of influence when it comes to developing personal values. Children tend to learn most of their behavior from their parents and older siblings, but as they get older they may be influenced by their teachers, coaches, friends, and even favorite actors or sports stars. All of these social interactions can have both a negative or positive influence over the development of our personal values.
Another key influence in personal values comes from our life experience, as we go through life we are able to take all of our positive and negative experiences and add them or discard them from our current belief system. Not only do your values influence your choices but as you grow older your choices will influence your values. Research has also shown that our values can change by the people we surround ourselves with through the process of association. For example during an independent study a German psychologist found out that he could eliminate a person’s fear of flying by simply having the patients sit down and talk with a professional pilot for 1 hour per week for several months.
By placing attention to your values you are able to become more self aware, make ethical decisions, and prioritize the things that really matter to you. When you are more self aware you will know exactly what you’re projecting to people when you interact with them, you will know exactly what you have done right and what you have done wrong in all aspects of your life. Understanding your own code of ethics and prioritizing your life will allow you live to your fullest potential, when you are able to proudly look yourself in the mirror you will have achieved what many like to call the height of empowerment.
Sometimes people may feel the need to change their current set of values, although this isn’t an overnight process it can be done with hard work and dedication. Since your personal values are a reflection of your life experiences the key to changing them is to change your life so that you have new experiences. By sitting down and consciously choosing which old values need to be removed, which values need to be retained, and which values need to be added you will be able to subconsciously command your brain to reprogram itself for change.
Caffeinated Content
Larry Strawson asked: