Photo: Gabriella Fabbri

It is my birthday on Friday the 7th August, so we have a birthday special offer for you this week, do go and take notice of it, it will only be available for this week.

For my birthday, I plan to spend some quality time with my wife at a fabulous restaurant. I am also having an evening with friends and family, as we go to watch Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra play in the big park near to us; we are going to enjoy a picnic and have a lot of fun.

I choose to spend my celebrations this way because I truly value the close friendships and relationships with my family. I value the love and affection shared and the peace of mind it gives me to be with them.

Following much discussion with my life coach in recent weeks, we looked at my own values... Values are basically an honest answer to the question, "What is important to you?" My life coach and I both need to know this information to ensure I am driven by the work we are doing and a range of other reasons too.

Having not examined my values for a long while, I was surprised by how much mine had changed, and also how much they affect me!

According to my very thick Collins English dictionary, values are, "Principles, qualities or entities that are intrinsically valuable or desirable." The term "value" originally meant "the worth of something," primarily relating to the economic sense of exchange value.

However, during the 19th century; under the influence of brilliant thinkers such as the wonderful Friedrich Nietzsche, values has become more of a philosophical notion too... In recent years, the notion of values has worked itself into modern personal development and now has a very important part to play.

Of course, values are associated with worth, meaning and desire and therefore are a primary source of motivation in people's lives... I have discovered that to my delight this very week. When people's values are met or matched, they feel a sense of satisfaction, harmony, and connection with people and the world around them. When their values are not met or matched, people often feel dissatisfied, incongruent, or violated in some way.

So if we know them, we can work on getting them met, can't we?

As an exploration of your own values, consider for a moment how you would respond to the following questions: "In general, what motivates you?" 'What is most important to you?" "What moves you to action, or gets you out of bed in the morning?"

Here is a list of common life values to stimulate your thoughts:

Success, Praise, Recognition, Responsibility, Pleasure, Love, Acceptance, Achievement, Creativity, Freedom, Contribution, Fun, Family, Growth, Passion, Carefulness, Affection, Accomplishment, Decisiveness, Wisdom, Service, Talent, Simplicity, Virtue, Reliability, Friendship, Respect, Resolve, Originality, Openness, Mindfulness, Longevity, Leadership, Intimacy, Generosity, Faith, Grace, Enthusiasm, Experience, Uniqueness, Endurance, Dominancy, Direction, Commitment, Security, Balance, beauty, Care, Courage, Encouragement, Fitness, Agility, Health, Helpfulness, Mastery, Impact, Modesty, Organisation, Peace, Power, Privacy, Reason, Realism, Serenity, Sympathy, Toughness, Trust, Youthfulness, Wonder, Punctuality, Productivity, Perseverance, Intuition, Independence, Flow, Discipline, Self-actualisation, Charm, Certainty, Awareness.

Values such as these greatly influence and direct the outcomes that we establish and the choices that we make.

If you look at the goals that you have set for yourself in life, they are pretty much an expression of your values. A person whose goal is to "be self-employed" probably values "freedom"; a person whose goal is to be managing director of the company may value "power"; a person whose goal is to "find the right partner and get married" may well value "stability."

Similarly, we can look at it the other way around too... A person who does have that value of "stability" is likely to set goals related to achieving stability in his or her personal or professional life, aren't they? Such a person will seek different outcomes than a person who values "flexibility," for example.

A person who values stability may also be content with a 9-to-5 job that has consistent pay and involves well established tasks. A person who values flexibility, on the other hand, may try to find work involving a range of tasks and a variable time schedule.

A person's values will also shape how that individual perceives the situations in their life. This then determines how a person behaves and approaches that situation and also, what actions that person takes in that situation.

For example, a person who values "safety," is likely to keep evaluating a situation or activity as to whether it is potentially dangerous or not. Whereas a person who values "fun" is more likely to assess the same situation by looking for humour or playfulness, or opportunities to laugh.

Values help us make our decisions as we do. If you think about times when you have had to make decisions, think that if you knew your highest values, and what is important to you, the decisions tend to make themselves in ways that are for your highest good, and NOT in ways that conflict with your values and cause problems or friction in your life.

This week then, I am sharing with you a process for identifying your values in life and then putting them into an order so that you can create a hierarchy of values...

Photo: Svilen Mushkatov

Step One:

Be in a progressive, relaxed state with a receptive mind. I say progressive, because if you are not in a progressive state, you may negatively contaminate your values... If you've read the Dalai Lama's book, 'Destructive Emotions', you'll know that we all experience emotions which affect our state and, as such, that state is not the most progressive for eliciting your own values.

I am not suggesting that you only do this when happy. Of course not. Just that when you do it, you are doing it for the best for yourself.

Ideally, enter the state of self-hypnosis... Learn how to do so with my book, The Secrets of Self-Hypnosis, on the subject, or just focus inwardly on your thoughts, slow your breathing and use any relaxation method or meditation method you know. Begin only when you have a receptive and progressive state of mind.

Step Two:

You now ask yourself or the person you are eliciting the values of...

"What is important to you?"

Answer honestly and frankly... The best results from this are by getting your core values, the true values that represent you. Not getting the values of what you want others to see, or what you wish you were like!

Another way of doing this which is slightly easier is to run through a list of values, like the one I have given earlier today.

As you look at the values on the list, you identify the importance of each value on the list. The best way to do that is to value them on a scale of 1-5, for example, with 1 being a very weak value and 5 being a strong value that you hold very dear and have defended in your life to date.

More simply, you can strike out the unimportant ones, and circle or highlight the ones that are important to you.

You'll notice that some of the values on this list are very similar: honesty, integrity, truth. And others might overlap them: justice, honour, trust.

Where you notice you've selected several very similar values, you might like to focus on what each means to you, and then identify the most important one from that group.

If you do not wish to spoon-feed a list of values to people, you could ask some thought-provoking questions such as;

"If you were celebrating your 90th birthday today, what would you most like to hear friends and family saying to describe your life?" or "If you had to let go of everything you have in life, and got to keep just one characteristic of your former self, what would that be?"

These questions and those similar do start to demonstrate what values a person has when they respond.

With a list of values put together, you can then move on to the next step.

Step Three:

Now you determine the hierarchy of those values, you place them in order by evaluating each and comparing each.

So you take your list of values that you previously generated and compare it to each of the other values. For example, "Which is more important -- 'fun' or 'stability'?" Whichever is chosen moves its way up your list. You compare it to the others immediately next to it on your list and work out which gets bumped up the list each time.

Do take your time and be thorough... Though also, trust your gut feelings, and do not intellectualise about what you 'think' should be important, just go with your initial feeling, that is the truthful value.

This is done a lot more easily when someone else is helping and asking you to discover which you find to be more important and you can just respond without thinking too much. Once you have got your list in order, in all its glory, you can breathe easily and congratulate yourself, you have done a good thing here!

Step Four:

Check that you are happy with what you have done. Think ecologically about yourself and your life. Think about your desired outcomes in life. As you think about those things, make any tweaks that might spring up in relation to your values and then you have your finalised list.

Now you know what drives you. Now you know what motivates you. Now you know how to create harmony when you do set goals for yourself!

Next week, I am going to show you how to audit your values, put them into action and plan with them to really make big changes in your life.

What Elderly Couples Share

A little old couple went in to a burger bar and placed an order for one hamburger, French fries and a drink.

The old man unwrapped the plain hamburger and carefully cut it in half, placing one half in front of his wife.

He then carefully counted out the French fries, dividing them into two piles and neatly placed one pile in front of his wife.

He took a sip of the drink, his wife took a sip and then set the cup down between them. As he began to eat his few bites of hamburger, the people around them were looking over and whispering. Obviously they were thinking, "That poor old couple -- all they can afford is one meal for the two of them."

As the man began to eat his fries, a young man came to the table and politely offered to buy another meal for the old couple. The old man said, they were just fine -- they were used to sharing everything.

People closer to the table noticed the little old lady hadn't eaten a bite. She sat there watching her husband eat and occasionally taking turns sipping the drink.

Again, the young man came over and begged them to let him buy another meal for them. This time the old woman said, "No, thank you, we are used to sharing everything."

Finally, as the old man finished and was wiping his face neatly with the napkin, the young man again came over to the little old lady who had yet to eat a single bite of food and asked "What is it you are waiting for?"

She answered... "The teeth."

Hahaha... Very funny... As always, a very big thank you to all those of you that in the wonderful jokes and those that post them up in the members area, I love them all... It is such a tonic to laugh at these things.

As a subscriber to my ezine, you, and anyone you recommend, can consult with me privately for therapy, coaching and personal development at a reduced fee. Get in touch with me to find out more. Just send me an email from the contact us page of my website.

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Until next week, enjoy exploring these archetypes of transformation. I thank you for reading. Goodbye for now!

With my very best wishes,

Adam Eason
www.adam-eason.com