Exploring Your Values

The first exercise is called “exploring your values”. The purpose here to see how your current behavior is impacting your life -- either your personal relationships or your work.  One definition of values is that they are a person's principles or standards of behavior; one's judgment of what is important in life.

Step 1: Make a list of all the things that are important to you.

What do you feel are the most significant things needed for you to have a successful life? What do you care about most?

Here are a bunch of options that you can pick from. You can also write your own.

• Family - to have a happy, loving family
• Wealth - to have plenty of money
• Purpose in life - to have meaning and direction in my life
• Responsibility - to make and carry out responsible decisions
• Love - to be loved by those close to me
• Yiddishkeit - to be a good Jew
• Knowledge - to learn and contribute valuable knowledge
• Humility - to be modest and unassuming
• Honesty - to be honest and truthful
• Inner Peace - to experience personal peace
• Spirituality - to grow and mature spiritually
• Integrity - to live my daily life in a way that is consistent with my values
• Health - to be physically well and healthy
• Independence - to be free from depending on others

Step 2: After you make your list, choose 5 you feel are the most important.

Step 3: Then ask yourself, does your current behavior enhance or help these values or does it go against them, or is it irrelevant? If it goes against them, how does it interfere?

Example (For a married guy)

What I value the most?	How does my current behavior interfere?
Hashem / My Yiddishkeit	I know it's wrong It makes me feel guilty & distant from Hashem Causes pain to my neshama
Good Marriage	My wife might find out and leave c"v. Makes me less attracted to her - I keep comparing her to others. It's not fair to her. My marriage will be 10x better if I stop
My Kids	I feel less of a role model for them They might find out and that would be tragic
Parnasah	Takes away time I could spend on developing my career Stopping will be a segula for abundance
Learning Torah	It makes it harder to focus. My mind wanders and is less clear.

Full list of values

Acceptance, Achievement, Accomplishment*, Admiration,* Adventure*, Athletic*, Art[istic], Authority, Accuracy, Adventure, Ambition*, Attractiveness, Autonomy, Beauty, Belonging, Caring, Chinuch, Comfort, Compassion, Compromise, Conscientious*, Cooperation, Challenge, Change*, Creativity*, Commitment, Complexity, Contribution, Courage, Courtesy, Curiosity, Creativity, Diligence, Ecology, Faithfulness , Dependability, Dignity*, Duty, Excitement, Faith, Fame, Family, Fitness, Flexibility, Forgiveness, Freedom , Friendship, Fun, Generosity, Genuineness, Good Parent*, Genuineness*, Gratitude, Growth, Halacha / Hashem’s[1] Will, Health, Helper*, Home*, Honesty, Hope, Humility, Humor, Imagination, Independence, Industry, Inner Peace, Intelligence, Justice, Knowledge* Leader[ship], Loved, Intimacy, Knowledge, Learning*, Leisure, Loving, Loyalty*, Mastery, Mindfulness, Moderation, Music, Novelty, Money, Monogamy, Non-conformity, Nurturance, Order, Openness, Passion, Perfection*, Pleasure, Power, Proud*, Protect, Purpose, Patriotism, Popularity, Practicality, Provide, Rationality, Realism, Reputation, Respect*, Responsibility, Risk, Role Model, Romance, Safety, Security*, Self-Acceptance, Self-Control, Self-Esteem, Service, Sexuality, Success*, Solitude, Stability, Strong*, Tradition, Wealth, Simplicity, Spirituality, Tolerance, Virtue, Wisdom,* World Peace, Yiddishkeit.

In SMART Recovery

SMART Recovery has a simplified version of this tool:

1. Take a few minutes or so and write down a list of things that are important to you. (There is no list of suggestions.)
2. From the list above, look through and choose those that you consider to be your “Top Five”… the five things you consider to be the MOST IMPORTANT to you (in no particular order).
3. Notice that your drug of choice isn't on your list!

See HOV (Hierarchy of Values Worksheet) Worksheet on SMART Recovery

The SMART Recovery Handbook also has a follow up exercise with a few questions:

1. What do I want for my future?
2. What am I currently doing to achieve that?
3. How do I feel about what I’m currently doing?
4. What could I do differently to achieve the future I want?
5. How would changing what I do or getting what I want make me feel?

References

• Personal values. Self-reevaluation involves rethinking the problem behavior and recognizing when and how this behavior conflicts with personal values and goals. By identifying their values and then examining how their substance use is inconsistent with those values, clients will be using the change process of self-reevaluation. In considering and exploring whether or not their values fit with their substance use, some members may experience some strong feelings that characterize the change process of emotional arousal. Velasquez, Mary M. Group Treatment for Substance Abuse, Second Edition (Page 103). The Guilford Press. Kindle Edition.
• When you can truly experience how a habit is damaging what is most important to you, the steps out of your destructive habit often fall readily into place. Peele Phd Jd, Stanton. 7 Tools to Beat Addiction: A New Path to Recovery from Addictions of Any Kind: Smoking, Alcohol, Food, Drugs, Gambling, Sex, Love (p. 23). Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale. Kindle Edition.
• Periodically revisit a list of your top five values in life; think about how your change is linked to those values. Changeology p. 191
• Values clarification Birchard, Thaddeus. CBT for Compulsive Sexual Behaviour (p. 62). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition. (See there for description).
• https://taylorpearson.me/core-values-list/ (Research on Values and Happiness)

Other Worksheets

• Values discussion cards. Has great questions to help you figure out what your values are.
• Values Clarification. A tool where you can choose and rate which values are important to you.
• Exploring Values. A nice worksheet that helps you identify your values by asking you to list your mother's values, father's values, values of person your respect etc.
• Personal Values Card Sort. Has nice list of values and descriptions. William R. Miller Janet C’de Baca Daniel B. Matthews & Paula Wilbourne. Not copyright. Instruction sheet.