Values - 073
Getting stronger at saying no.
Ok I'll admit. We still are working our way through our halloween candy stash. With the kids on break this week and next, the different schedule means it's hard to find time to exercise. And we're hosting friends more which means lots of pastries and lots of snacking. I've been eating really poorly, which is frustrating because I pride myself on being disciplined. But this time of year, inevitably things fall apart.
It feels like I should stop. Like I ought to stick to my routine in order to feel good every day.
While one of my values is self-discipline, I also value rest. And family togetherness. Values are constantly in conflict with one another. We have to choose and prioritize how we act. Earlier this year, I read this quote from Khe Hy, who says, "it is easier to adopt the values of the game than to determine your own." "The game" being things like capitalism, corporate ladders, and upward creep of material desire. I certainly don't feel like an expert in the topic, but I've done some reading and activities to help clarify and define them. Having defined some of my values this year, it feels easier to say no. More aligned to say yes. To avoid the "shoulds" and "ought tos." My values help me be clearer with my kids about why we have bedtimes, don't have candy for breakfast, and don't celebrate Christmas.
This month, as the year closes and I'm making decisions about my intentions for the next year, let's talk about values.
How to Burn Out
In 2013, I was working 90 hour weeks making Google commercials that never saw the light of day. No surprise, It was about 6 months before I burned out and quit without another job lined up. But in retrospect, it wasn't the long hours that burned me out. My team made staying up late editing videos fun– we'd order food, have a beer or two, take 2am dance breaks.
The full story is that one of my friends was going to SXSW in Austin in 2013. He was able to get us a hotel room, conference passes, and a few parties. Everything felt really exciting, because after working so much, I was finally looking forward to a couple days off. And then, my boss told me I couldn't go. I cancelled my flights and made a disappointing call to my friend.
We worked all weekend and presented on Monday. And the client didn't like the work and the whole project died. Then. My boss shared he just got back from SXSW that morning. That was the straw. I'm done.
I made a plan to quit. Not because I was working too much. But because the people managing me revealed that their values were misaligned with mine.
I value integrity. I value recognition and rest as a reward after hard work. I value fairness. I value learning and new experiences with friends.
We're willing to give generously when we feel aligned. We're able to push ourselves and endure challenging situations when we're living our values. It's the feeling that this is what a life is for and this is how I want to spend my time.
But burnout is not about our time. Burnout is just the result of working out of integrity with our values for too long.
How to Find Your Values
Earlier this year, I took a course called "Designing Your Next Career Step." The first week, while I expected to review our resumes and start rewriting our bios, we instead spent the entire first week defining our values.
It's not as easy as I expected. It's not just that I value family or education. But to really look deeply at how I define either of those things. And what else? And which are more important because our values will almost always conflict with one another?
Here are three ways I learned to identify my values.
Reflect on Personal Stories I first think about the last few years and times when I felt something really strongly. I really stood my ground about going to a social event, so much that it caused a fight. I felt really offended the way a coworker handled a money situation. I felt regret and disappointment as we drove by the pop-up event just to go home and watch TV. Likewise, strong positive stories help too. Moments of flow in my art. Laughing around the table. Not wanting to get wet and then fully dancing in the rain. Who was I with? What was so magical about these? What is important to me about this? These are revealing moments. Emotions are data giving us information about ourselves. And the stronger the emotion, the more it's tied to our values.
Values Journaling At the end of the day, spend 5 minutes answering one simple question. How did my behavior today connect to my values—to what I care most deeply about?
"The Upside of Stress" by Kelly McGonigal proposes this exercise. She says, "In the short term, writing about personal values makes people feel more powerful, in control, proud, and strong. It also makes them feel more loving, connected, and empathetic toward others...In the long term, writing about values has been shown to boost GPAs, reduce doctor visits, improve mental health...People who write about their values once, for ten minutes, show benefits months or even years later.”
Values Sorting
There are lots of online versions of this if you don't want to write your own 100 values on notecards.
Google "Values sorting exercise" and you'll find a handful of options. The process I did was go through a stack of cards with values on them 3 times. The first pass is just sorting "Yes or no" piles. The next pass is going through the yess and sorting "high or low priority" and the final pass is choosing my top 3 values.
From there, I was taught to make them positive. DO this instead of DON'T do the opposite. Make them into short sentences or verbs to define what they mean to you. For example, one of my top values is "connection" which I define as "Building Relationships through meaningful interactions. " And "creativity" to me is about "Generating, refining, and sharing new ideas." The sharing of them I realized is a huge part for me. It's why I write and publish a refrigerator every month and not just sketch in a notebook.
Knowing our values is a life unlock. It helps us make choices that feel better. More aligned with who we are and what we want. Knowing our values helps us feel more in control, powerful, and resilient.
What are yours? (Seriously, if you know yours, I'd love to hear!)
Extra Curriculars
For nearly 12 years, I took weekly piano lessons. That's close to 600 lessons. I don't remember most of them but I do have a memory from one, early on. I must've been about 7 and I was learning The Star Spangled Banner– the first song I learned where the left hand was playing anything other than whole notes. It was really hard. And my teacher told me two things. "First," he said, "when you practice, don't just play the whole song beginning to end. Start with the part that you're struggling with. Get better at that part. And then when you're ready you can play the whole thing." Also. "Stay at the piano until you finish. Don't leave when you get frustrated or when the work gets hard."
Piano lessons taught me how to be disciplined and work hard. Piano lessons taught me how to learn. We signed the kids up for swimming because it's important to us that they don't drown when we want to go on vacation. But even more than that, I'm realizing that extra curriculars are not just activities to kill time and keep us busy. These are places where we learn values. I'm not just taking Golda to art class, I'm helping instill her self confidence and creativity. I'm not just signing Abe up for preschool at our synagogue, I'm connecting him to his Jewish heritage and community.
Stanford Business School Professor Joel C. Peters says "Show me your calendar and I'll show you what you vallue." Our choices over time reveals our priorities. The next time it's time to look at a class for Golda or Abe, when I'm ready to take on my next side project I'll choose based on values.
One action I took this month to align my behavior with my values
Effective Values Are Antifragile
Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of values– self and other. The distinction allows us to separate selfish and altruistic behavior. (In this context, I'm not putting any judgment on either. It's not good or bad to be selfish– it seems worthwhile to have values that focus on personal development, learning, success, or calm.)
There are selfish values that encourage a harder, more empty life. Values like pleasure and material success. Surrounding yourself only with likeminded people and valuing always being right. "Good vibes only." When these values are challenged, they quickly fall apart. People who focus on pleasure become less disciplined and more unhappy over time. Ignoring negative emotions only leads to prolonged feeling of those negative emotions. Always being right encourages a shallower worldview, prevent learning, and force a picture of life as a zero sum game (I can only win if someone loses).
I'm thinking about more effective values. Values that lead to a fulfilling, meaningful life. Things like honesty, curiosity, creativity, vulnerability, empathy, mentorship, community. These values actually get stronger when challenged. They're ANTI-fragile. They get stronger when they're challenged and tested. When our relationship starts veering towards dysfunction, it's even more important to be honest and vulnerable.
Pleasure and good vibes feel good in the moment. But they also make us more fragile. When those are our values, we don't tolerate ambiguity, uncertainty, discomfort, stress, and the unknown. When we choose effective values– oftentimes altruistic– it make the value itself (and us) stronger. We're able to endure the stress of a difficult person when we value taking care of others. We put up with discomfort to get the benefits of being part of community. We endure the awkwardness of being a beginner to learn something.
Here's to choosing effective values. And a year of living in integrity with them. Wishing you a healthy, happy, new year. I'm grateful to be on this journey with you. As always, I'd love to hear your reflections, reactions, disagreements, and especially your own values.
Refrigeyalater,
Jake
Me again.
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