Personal Values Drive Decisions and Actions

Understanding Others Is Enhanced By Understanding Their Values 

Scientists believe there is a gap, or space, between stimulus and response. What occurs in this space affects your personal development and, eventually, your happiness. 

If what happens in this gap is molded, shaped and guided by your values, the resultant outcomes will be more in agreement and harmonious with your true self. Naturally, this will lead to greater self satisfaction and authentic happiness.

However, if you permit factors other than your own values to influence your decisions and actions, then the results are less likely to be congruent with who you really are, leading to disappointment, self doubt and dissatisfaction with yourself.

Be forewarned, however, that sometimes your values may lock you into a course of action that is detrimental to you, particularly over the short haul. When this happens, how it impacts you over the longer term will be determined by what you learn from the experience and how you evaluate the final outcome.

Also, sometimes you can experience a problem caused by conflicting values. When this occurs it is useful to have a ranked hierarchy of your values, so that you can utilize the most important one or give greater weight to the most cherished one when deciding what to do. 

Not all personal values are equal, and only you can decide which ones are the most important in your life. As famed science fiction write Isaac Asimov has advised, "Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what is right."

One key to understanding other people is to realize that their values drive their decisions and actions. You do not necessarily have to agree with their values, or with their actions and decisions. But simply knowing and understanding their personal values will make it easier for you to comprehend and figure out the basis for their actions and decisions.

This does not mean, however, that you have to share or even accept another person's values, only that understanding these will enable you to better understand their actions and decisions. 

As the Native American Indian proverb goes, "Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins." 

This article is excerpted from the best-selling personal development Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats.