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Hi there. Welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for joining me. We've talked many different times on this podcast in many different ways about how to determine your values. And why is this important? We talked about how happiness doesn't come from seeking the feeling of happiness. That research shows us that happiness actually comes from living a life according to your values. And research shows us that it gives us certain really amazing benefits when we can live our lives oriented by our values, including higher life satisfaction, greater overall wellbeing. Less depression, anxiety, and bad stress. We have stronger social relationships. We have less loneliness. Just overall better mental health, resilience, physical health, longevity. All of these things can happen from living your life in accordance with your values, but in order to do that, you need to be able to determine what your values are or discover what they are. And we've talked about how this isn't like discovering the five pillars of truth that are true for all humanity. Your values are what you value. It can be as individual as what ice cream flavor you like, as opposed to what other people like. You value what you value, and that's that. But in order to discover what you value, sometimes that's not always intuitive. So I'm gonna put a link in the show notes to different ways that we have talked about trying to figure out what you value so that you can reach these benefits, including reduced anxiety, which is one of the things that this podcast is all about. But the most recent way that we have talked about determining your values was to answer this question "I'll be happy when," fill in the blank. And then according to how you fill in that blank digging behind that goal that you have to figure out the values that are driving you in that direction. And we talked last week about three different examples from my own coaching of people that I coached through how to get behind the answer to that question, to discover your values.

But in any case, once we've discovered our values, that's only the first step. The next step is to actually move in that direction. So we talked about how values are directions. It's like traveling west, for example. Values help you to know which way you want to steer your life. So to compare it to a sailing metaphor, if you don't have your values defined, then you don't know what direction you want to sail, and you're just going to be aimlessly drifting. And your direction in life is going to be determined by things outside of you that happen to you that you don't choose, like the wind and the waves and the currents. But all of these benefits that we talked about just a second ago can be available to you as soon as you decide what direction it is that you want to go in your life, and you start taking action to move yourself in that direction. So our values that we have are our chosen direction and the actions that we take to move ourselves in the direction that we choose are goals. So the first step is to determine or discover your values, and the second is to set goals that will move you in the direction that you have chosen. But the cool thing is that you don't actually have to wait until you arrive at a certain destination in order to have all of these benefits that we just talked about. That sentence, "I'll be happy when," and the way we fill in that blank reflects a certain destination that we feel like we want to arrive at. But research shows us that we don't need to arrive at the destination in order to have all these benefits. We just need to be moving in the direction that we value. We just need to be sailing toward the place that we're trying to go. We don't have to actually reach there. As soon as we are taking steps to move in that direction, then we already have access to these benefits. That's what's so cool.

So I wanna talk a little bit about taking these steps in the direction of your value, how you do that. So this is talking about goals, and we've talked about goals in several different ways on this podcast, but I wanna talk about specifically how you set goals once you have figured out what your values are. So probably the biggest problem that people run into as far as their goals when they're trying to live a value oriented life is that they, they set goals that are too ambitious or too many of them, and it gets overwhelming. And so then they give up or else they just put it off to another day. And so then you're not moving toward that goal that you have. You're just drifting. As long as you're not taking steps, then you are drifting. But something I want you to realize is that you don't need to take some enormous step in order to feel these benefits of wellbeing that come from living a value-centered life. You just need to take any small step, and then you're already going in that direction, you're already moving in that direction. You're already living a life oriented by your values.

So what you need to do is you need to be able to break your goals down into really small bites. Let me illustrate. I wanna go back to the story that I told last week about a client that I called Mike. I was coaching him, trying to help him find his values behind the question "I'll be happy when," and we discovered, as I said in that last episode, that one of his values was that it was really important to him to help his students be able to get themselves together, to be able to have better wellbeing, help them to have better emotional health, better productivity. Once he discovered that value, then I coached him through how to set goals according to that value, how to get him moving in that direction. So there's three questions that can help with this. And the first question that I asked him, and again, these questions come from that book, the Happiness Trap, by Russ Harris that we've been referencing in the last episodes, and I'm, I'll put another link to that in the show notes. It's a great book. But I asked him, what is the smallest, easiest step that you could take this week to move yourself in that direction? To move yourself in the direction of being able to help your students have better wellbeing and better emotional health and get themselves together. So he thought about small, easy steps and he started to realize he could find ways to show them more attention. He's someone that's not particularly talented at remembering people's names. Some people have a real facility for it. This wasn't the case for him. But he realized that he, he still didn't have a total handle on the names of all of his students. He had many different classes, many different groups of students that he taught, and he didn't know their names well enough to always be able to call them up to memory when he's in class and he needed to call on somebody or comment on something that somebody had said. And so he realized, well, I could work on really trying to commit these names to memory. I could do that this week. That was a small step that he determined that he could take in the direction of helping his students to have better emotional health because he realized that him showing them greater attention would help them to feel more cared for, and that that would be something that he could do to contribute toward their wellbeing and emotional health and conquer their trust. So that's the first question that you can ask yourself is what is the smallest, easiest step that I can take in this direction this week?

And the second question that I asked him as a follow up was, when will you take this step? So he set a day and a time that he was gonna work on it. And then the third question is, what hard sensations are you willing to have in order to do this? We talked recently about how when you live a life that's oriented by your values, you're not going to only have pleasant emotions and sensations. It's gonna involve experiencing difficult and uncomfortable feelings and thoughts as you pursue things that are important to you. As you head off in the ocean in the direction that you wanna go, you're gonna come across some obstacles, some barriers, some difficulties. You might come across a storm, you might come across some big waves, but in order to keep going in that direction that you've chosen, you've gotta go through those difficulties. And we had several episodes where we talked about how it is that you can get better at being willing to experience difficult and unpleasant thoughts and emotions, how you can make space for them, how you cannot be alarmed by them, how you can not inflame them by, by just allowing them to be there, by accepting them. So I'll link those in the show notes as well for you to be able to reference that if you missed those or if you want a refresher. But asking yourself, what hard sensations am I willing to have in order to pursue this? It's helpful to ask yourself that ahead of time because whenever you set out on a goal, even if it's a small, easy one, it might involve some effort. It might involve something that's a little bit unpleasant, and if you've already determined that you're willing to feel this ahead of time, then it doesn't throw you off when you encounter it, and you're more likely to be able to follow through on it and carry through on it.

So those are the three little tips that can help you to set goals to start moving in your valued direction. Once you have determined your values, you can ask yourself, what's the smallest, easiest step that I can take to move myself in this direction this week? And the second question is, when will I take this step? Write it down. And the third is what hard sensations am I willing to have in order to take this step? And just remember that as soon as you start moving in your valued direction, you can already access those benefits of satisfaction and fulfillment and less anxiety and greater grit and persistence, and all of those things that we talked about in the beginning of this podcast that come from living in a life in accordance with your values. It's just about moving in the direction that is important to you. You don't have to have already reached certain landmarks on the way. You just have to be going in the direction that is important to you. And then you can already have all of these great resources at your disposal to help you in your journey.
So those are my thoughts for you today. Thanks for joining me. Don't forget to stay tuned for our little kindness narrative, which is a story that a listener sent in about a time when someone was kind to them, and it works as your gratitude practice for the week if you just listen to it, it's really easy. And it will be even more powerful for yourself and for all of us if you will contribute your own kindness narrative to help us keep this practice going. Thanks so much for listening today, and have a good week.

This kindness narrative was sent to me from a listener by email, so I'm going to read it to you. Carol Lee was the librarian at my elementary school. She was a fixture there for what seems to me must have been decades. Everyone loved Mrs. Lee. She was such a kind soul and just knew everything there was to know about how to engage kids to read and learn. Mrs. Lee has reached the end of her life and my mother sent my siblings and me an email today that said this.

Dear family, Carol Lee is declining steadily. She has congestive heart failure and has a hard time breathing. I don't know when she will pass on, but I thought it would raise her spirits to get remembrance slash thank you notes from those who attended Wasatch School at the time she was the librarian. This was my note to her. Dear Mrs. Lee. I wanted to let you know what a positive impact you had on me during the years I attended Wasatch School. The library was such a safe, happy place to visit. I don't remember all the books you read to us or all the presentations you gave, but I do remember enjoying them and the whole atmosphere of the library. Although I already loved books, I think my happy memories at the Wasatch Library were mostly due to your obvious enjoyment of your role and the caring way you treated all of the students. Your ever cheerful smile and approachability were so comforting to a shy little girl. Thank you for being such a bright spot in my life. Much love.