Why values are important in life ?

1.Our values inform our thoughts, words and actions. 

Our values are important because they help us to grow and develop. They help us to create the future we want to experience.

Every individual and every organisation is involved in making hundreds of decisions every day. The decisions we make are a reflection of our values and beliefs, and they are always directed towards a specific purpose. That purpose is the satisfaction of our individual or collective (organisational) needs.

When we use our values to make decisions, we make a deliberate choice to focus on what is important to us. When values are shared, they build internal cohesion in a group. 

There are four types of values that we find in an organisational setting: individual values, relationship values, organisational values and societal values.

Individual values

Individual values reflect how you show up in your life and your specific needs-the principles you live by and what you consider important for your self-interest. Individual values include: enthusiasm, creativity, humility and personal fulfilment.

Relationship values

Relationship values reflect how you relate to other people in your life, be they friends, family or colleagues in your organisation. Relationship values include: openness, trust, generosity and caring.

Organisational values

Organisational values reflect how your organisation shows up and operates in the world. Organisational values include: financial growth, teamwork, productivity and strategic alliances.

Societal values

Societal values reflect how you or your organisation relates to society. Societal values include: future generations, environmental awareness, ecology and sustainability. 

2. Values vs. Beliefs: Values unite, beliefs divide.

There is a significant difference between values and beliefs.

Beliefs

Beliefs are assumptions we hold to be true. When we use our beliefs to make decisions, we are assuming the causal relationships of the past, which led to the belief, will also apply in the future.  

In a rapidly changing world where complexity is increasing day by day, using information from the past to make decisions about the future may not be the best way to support us in meeting our needs.

Beliefs are contextual: They arise from learned experiences, resulting from the cultural and environmental situations we have faced. 

Values

Values are not based on information from the past and they are not contextual. Values are universal. Values transcend contexts because they are based on what is important to us: They arise from the experience of being human.

Values are intimately related to our needs: Whatever we need—whatever is important to us or what is missing from our lives—is what we value.  

As our life conditions change, and as we mature and grow in our psychological development, our value priorities change. When we use our values to make decisions we focus on what is important to us - what we need to feel a sense of well-being. 

3.Values-Based Decision-Making: Every decision we make is either a conscious or unconscious attempt to satisfy our needs.

Over time, humans have developed six ways of making decisions—instincts, subconscious beliefs, conscious beliefs, values, intuition, and inspiration. Nowadays, it is normal for human beings to grow up with the ability to utilise the first three modes of decision-making. 

From an evolutionary perspective, values-based decision-making, intuition-based decision-making, and inspiration are still relatively new, but are increasingly being used as more and more people evolve to higher levels of consciousness.

The reasons why values-based decision-making is so important at this time in our human history are three-fold:

• Values-based decision-making is necessary for individuation and self-actualisation. Values allow us to transcend the belief structures of our parental and cultural conditioning, so we can become more fully who we are, and live a more authentic life.
• Values-based decision-making is necessary for the institutionalisation and development of democracy around the world. Values allow us to transcend our ethnic/cultural belief structures by uniting us around shared basic human principles. In human group cultures, values unite and beliefs separate.
• Values-based decision-making allows us to throw away our rule books. When a group of people espouse an agreed set of values and understand which behaviours support those values, then you no longer need to rely on bureaucratic procedures setting out what people should or should not do in specific situations. All the rules reduce to one—live the values. People can work out for themselves what they need to do, and in so doing become responsible and accountable for their behaviours.