Values, Desires and Beliefs

Now that many of us are making and trying to keep New Year’s resolutions, I copied an extract from my new book: Deep Coaching: A Guide to Self Directed Living. If your resolutions are out of sync with your values and beliefs, then they are probably not something you really desire and you will probably forget about them as do many people. This excerpt is from Chapter Two.

Each of us is a collection of values and beliefs that help guide us through life. Your values and beliefs color your judgments of others and yourself and define your range of choices. They are central to who you are, sometimes referred to as your inner compass. You act according to your beliefs every day, whether you are conscious of it or not. People who refuse to change act as if their beliefs are set in stone, which limits their range of responses, but if challenged, beliefs can change. What are your beliefs? Are you aware of any beliefs you hold that act as a brake on your range of choices?

First of all, what are beliefs? In simplest terms, beliefs are descriptions of cause and effect. “Honesty is the best policy” is a belief that being honest in dealing with others will produce social benefits. Someone who aspires to honesty because of this belief does so for what it produces. If honesty were thought desirable for its own sake, then it would be something valued, rather than a belief.

What are values and beliefs and how do they differ?

Ethical Values: Deeply held principles that guide our judgments and behavior. These are ideals about how others and we should behave. Examples: Honesty, and Kindness, Justice.

Desires: (Sometimes thought of as non-ethical Values): Things held dear to our ideas of the good life. Things we intrinsically want and hold in high esteem. Examples: Accumulation of wealth, freedom, love, security, fame.

Beliefs: Cause and effect relationships and descriptions of the world we hold to be true. Example: “I must work hard and efficiently or I’ll never get anywhere.”

What we value and our beliefs might be thought of as our software or operating system. You input information from the outside world and your programming outputs a range of choices based on your beliefs and what you value. For example: let’s say you value efficiency. In this case you probably do not like to waste your time or other people’s. We pick up most of our beliefs being socialized as children from parents, religion, our peers, the school system, the media, and from seeing things with our own eyes. Some hoary beliefs you may remember are that children should be seen and not heard, or mind your own business.

What you value and your beliefs often interact when it comes to making decisions. You may believe that taking expressways across America is the most efficient way to get to San Francisco, even if it is not the most direct route. This might have the practical advantage of efficiency, something you value, but does it conflict with other things you value?

What if you held high value for seeking out and appreciating places of beauty or of historic interest? Might this not steer you toward a trip that featured stops at major museums and galleries and points of interest? Quite a different trip altogether from a blast across the interstate system, isn’t it? How then might your belief about the efficiency of the Interstate system interact with the value placed on efficiency and the value you hold for seeing beautiful and historic places? What you value and your beliefs interact to produce a system of thought that leads you to make choices in a specific direction.

You can find more information about Deep Coaching on my website: www.giantstepscoaching.com/deepcoaching.htm. Go there for a free download of three chapters of the book.