How personal values help make difficult decisions — Daily Maverick
In South Africa, writer and coach Louise Janowski suggests using one’s own core values as a guide when making difficult decisions in a career, relationships or other areas of life. The author believes that returning to such an inner compass can bring clarity and confidence when the available courses of action seem contradictory.
Daily Maverick writes about this approach. Janowski notes that values help determine what is most important to a person, while a sense of purpose turns these priorities into a direction for further action.
Values as a system of priorities
The author refers to Schwartz’s theory, according to which values are beliefs that acquire emotional significance in certain situations. For example, a person for whom independence is important may react strongly to restrictions on their freedom and feel satisfaction when they are able to exercise it.
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Values can also serve as standards by which a person evaluates possible decisions. Their influence is not always noticeable in everyday life, but it becomes more pronounced when a particular choice conflicts with established priorities. According to Janowski, it is precisely this system of priorities that influences attitudes and behavior.
Exercises for identifying guiding principles
To outline one’s own core values, the author advises answering the question of how a person would like to live going forward. She suggests choosing five important words and forming a sentence with them about the desired way of life — for example, combining calmness and creativity with discipline, mindfulness and gratitude.
Another exercise involves completing three sentences: how to be one’s best at work, how to be the best partner, parent, child or friend, and for what qualities a person would like to be respected or remembered. Janowski notes that shifting the focus from searching for the ideal next step to the principles that should guide it can provide a sense of purpose and greater agency.
