As the new year rolls in, many people embrace the tradition of setting New Year’s resolutions, often aiming to lose weight, exercise more, or quit troubling habits. These goals initially feel like an empowering way to start fresh, but can prove stressful and difficult to maintain. Most people abandon them by the end of January. What if there was a better approach, one that didn’t rely on strict goals or outcomes? Instead of focusing on what you want to achieve, why not focus on who you want to be and what truly matters to you? Connecting with your deepest values might just be the key to a more meaningful, sustainable sense of well-being and joy.
What Are Values?
Values are the principles or qualities you hold most dear in life—the things that give your actions purpose and meaning. Unlike goals or achievements, values serve as guiding lights that influence how you live, who you become, and how you navigate life’s challenges. For example, if you value kindness, you might prioritize helping others, showing patience, or offering compassion in tough situations. If you value creativity, you might seek out ways to express yourself, whether through art, writing, or problem-solving. The beauty of values is that they’re not about ticking off a to-do list or reaching a destination—they’re about staying true to what’s important to you as you move through life.
Values and Happiness
In fact, values tie into a deeper understanding of happiness. Ancient Greek philosophers distinguished between two types of happiness: hedonic and eudaimonic. Hedonic happiness is about pleasure, comfort, and instant gratification—enjoying things like good food, relaxing on the couch, or spending time with friends. It’s focused on maximizing enjoyment and minimizing pain, and it’s often the dominant focus in our modern culture.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with desiring ease or pleasure, and doing so can in fact contribute to our well-being. However, the happiness derived from hedonic pursuits is often short-lived. We can find ourselves on what’s called a “hedonic treadmill,” where we constantly chase pleasure, only for it to lose its appeal or satisfaction over time. For instance, you might buy the latest smartphone, feel excited for a few days, but then eventually the novelty wears off, and you are back on the treadmill, now longing for something else.
This is why to achieve greater levels of well-being, we need another form of happiness to complement our hedonic gratification: eudaimonic happiness. This type of happiness is rooted in living in line with your values—choosing to show up in a way that reflects your own unique definition of a meaningful, purposeful life. Having a sense of meaning and purpose in life is an important dimension of what makes life worth living. This is why, sooner or later, you’ll likely find yourself talking about values in therapy. Therapists understand that helping people clarify what matters to them is a powerful source of direction and stability—both when life is calm and predictable, and when you’re navigating through turbulent times.
Values Allow for Flexibility and Creativity
Now, let’s return to values as an alternative to New Year’s resolutions. One of the key benefits of focusing on values is that they offer more flexibility and creativity than rigid goals. For example, if your resolution is to “run a marathon,” you’re locked into a specific target—training for the race. But if your value is health, you can approach it from a variety of angles: eating more whole foods, getting outside for walks, practicing mindfulness, or prioritizing sleep. The possibilities are endless. Because values are connected to what truly matters to you, they feel less like a checklist and more like a holistic approach to living a life that aligns with who you are. And yes, you can still run your marathon—nothing wrong with that goal!
Ultimately, tuning into your values gives you a sense of freedom. Whether it’s kindness, adventure, growth, or community, living according to your values provides a deeper, more lasting sense of happiness than simply pursuing temporary goals. And the best part? You don’t need a new year to get started—values are always there, waiting for you to reconnect with them, anytime you’re ready to live a life that’s truly yours.
Next Steps
1. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a therapeutic approach that helps people accept their thoughts and feelings while committing to actions that align with their core values. You can find many wonderful values clarification exercises on Dr. Russ Harris’s The Happiness Trap website. Check out Bull’s Eye Worksheet.
2. This worksheet, also by Dr. Russ Harris, can help you sort through 60 different core values.
3. Check out this beautifully illustrated Live Your Values Deck.
4. Here you can read a variety of inspirational quotes that touch on many common values.
5. Another way to clarify your values is to imagine your 90th birthday. How do you hope others will describe you? When people reflect on your life, what would you like them to say about you?
6. Values are highly dynamic and change over time. If you are experiencing confusion or struggle defining your values (this is very common during times of stress or change), psychotherapy can be a powerful space to explore these important themes. To learn more, reach out to our intake team at Wildflower for a free initial consultation.
