Live with Happiness by Identifying Your Values

Sometimes in life, we feel lost and confused, unsure of which direction to go in our lives. Should we go to this school or that school? Should we stay with this person or leave? Well-meaning friends and family may give us advice and feedback, but we end up feeling even more lost among all their opinions and perspectives. Many people also find it difficult to make their own decisions, as they want so much for others to be happy, that they’ve learned to set aside their own desires for that of others.

Complicating things are feelings of anxiety or stress. For instance, your anxiety may make it difficult to go out with friends or to do the things you would like to do in your life such as travel or meet new people, out of fear and avoidance.

What Are Values?

According to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), an evidence-based treatment for anxiety and depression, one of the keys to a meaningful and fulfilling life is to examine your personal values. Values are attitudes that guide your emotions and behavior. They represent what is important to you. By clarifying them, you identify what is important to you. This can help guide your life decisions and actions so that they are consistent with what you truly find important in life, even when stress and anxiety get in the way.

How to Clarify and Claim Your Values

Being aware of your values and setting specific intentions related to them can help you build a rich and meaningful life. Start with a list of common values, such as love, friendship, meaning, loyalty, wealth, acceptance, adventure, adversity. Then give yourself 5-10 minutes to read through the list and select your top values. It can be helpful to select the values that resonate with you immediately and to not overthink it. It is also important to know that you can have values in different areas of your life — including friendship, family, romantic relationships, work, education, spirituality, and personal development. Therefore, you can clarify different sets of values in each of these domains. When selecting your values, ask yourself questions such as what type of friend or family member you would like to be. What is important to you in a romantic relationship and what type of values would you like to live out?

Why Clarifying Values is Important

Values can provide a north star for you as you go about your daily life and make decisions. By clarifying and being intentional about making decisions and acting in ways consistent with your values, you are creating a meaningful and fulfilling life. When things are in alignment, you are content and feel peace with your decisions even in the face of stress or other people’s opinions. You also feel fulfilled even when experiencing anxiety, because you know that an action such as attending a party and meeting new people is something important to you even if it may provoke anxiety.

Life is Short

When it comes down to it, life is short. We each have a limited time here on this earth. It’s important to have an awareness of what you want out of life and to live intentionally with meaning, purpose, and clarity each day. Values help illuminate a path forward for you toward achieving your best life.

---

therapist in falls church, mclean, tysons corner, merrifield, arlington and vienna, va

Victoria Chialy Smith, PhD is a licensed therapist serving the Falls Church, McLean, Great Falls, Vienna, Arlington, Alexandria, and the greater Washington DC region. She provides individual therapy to children, teens, and adults with stress, anxiety, and depression. Our practice provides Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), mindfulness and acceptance based therapies, and other top, premier evidence-based treatments. Call, email, or schedule an appointment with us online today. We’re happy to help!

4 Ways to Train Your Brain for Greater Happiness and Success

Life is hard and it can be painful. As humans faced with this pain and difficulty, we can get stuck in it, and feel heavy and burdened. When faced with barriers, we feel overwhelmed. When things get uncomfortable or distressing, we begin to avoid the discomfort — until eventually we forget what is truly important to us and our lives. Some of us lose hope and forget our dreams. Others give up dreaming altogether.

But there is a way forward.

ACT — Acceptance and Commitment Therapy — teaches us how to move from avoidance to acceptance and valued directions in our lives. Using it, we can train our minds to become more flexible, open, and able to accept the pain that life brings, all while moving towards our values — the things we find truly important in our lives.

Research shows that the human brain is plastic. It can be trained to learn new skills and patterns of thinking, which in turn influence new actions in your life. It’s not easy — it takes time, support, patience, and consistent practice — but it can be done.

A good place to start training your mind is with the acronym DARE. According to ACT, DARE stands for the following:

D: Defusion. Acknowledge your thoughts. Observe them. Recognize them for what they are — thoughts, and rather than seeing through them, let them pass like leaves on a stream.

A: Acceptance of discomfort. Make room for unpleasant emotions. Breathe into them. Make room for them and allow space for them in order to do what matters to you.

R: Realistic goals. Break down large goals into smaller, actionable tasks. Gain the necessary skills to achieve goals. Problem solve ways to obtain resources needed for goals. Adjust goals so that they are specific, measurable, and able to be accomplished. This will help you increase success and enable continued patterns of achieving goals.

E: Embrace values. Explore what is important to you. What would success, happiness, and living a whole life mean to you and what would it specifically look like? Connect your goals to your values. Are your goals serving a greater purpose for you? Do you feel that they are meaningful? Do they move you toward the person and life you want to live?

It might not be easy, but change is possible. The question then, is whether you are wiling to take the first initial steps towards change and to embrace the discomfort that goes along with it, if it means that you would be moving towards the greater, fuller life you envision for yourself.

(The source of the above acronym is from Russ Harris, The Happiness Trap. If you found this post helpful, I highly recommend checking his work out or finding a therapist who practices Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help support you toward your desired goals.)

---

psychologist in mclean, tysons corner, merrifield, falls church, arlington and vienna

Victoria Chialy Smith, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist serving the Falls Church, McLean, Great Falls, Vienna, Arlington, Alexandria, and the greater Washington DC region. She provides individual therapy to children, teens, and adults with stress, anxiety, and depression. Our practice provides Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), mindfulness and acceptance based therapies, and other top, premier evidence-based treatments. Call, email, or schedule an appointment with us online today. We’re happy to help!