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Why should we define our personal values?
I used to be a “Yes girl.” If someone asked me to do something, that three-letter word slipped from my lips in a nanosecond. If I could help someone, I said yes. If I might gain attention (read–being seen rather than invisible), I said yes. If the ask might temporarily fill that craving for acceptance and being seen that was deep inside me? I said yes.
Why do I share this? Because “Y-E-S” slipped out of my mouth many times when I should have said, “No.” Or “I’ll get back to you on that.”
My penchant for people-pleasing in my younger years drove my answers to requests. And almost always, those “yeses” required sacrifices in other areas of my life.
When we say yes to one thing, we must say no to something else. The drive to help others, to satisfy some of our own longings, and to accomplish things on our own timetables encourages us to say yes.
Has anyone else said yes when they knew in their hearts they should have said no?
Sometimes, we’re pressured into the yes.
Other times, we’re trying to fill a hole only God was meant to satisfy.
We also have times when we really do want to say yes, but we must say no.
How do we navigate our yeses and nos?
Knowing our personal values guides us in this. When we understand what we value, knowing how to answer a request becomes easier. For many years, I had a vague understanding of what I valued, but I didn’t know how (and I wondered if I had the right) to live into those values.
Did I value my relationship with God? Yes.
Did I value my relationship with my husband and sons? Yes.
Did I value my friendships? Yes.
Was serving at church a value? Yes.
The result of a wrong yes
But, because of my deeper value (or need) of being accepted, my yeses sometimes got out of whack. I said yes to serving because, when I was doing that, I felt accepted by the people who asked.
Which meant I said a silent “no” to something else, like spending time with my husband. When I said “yes” to serving more than “yes” to keeping my husband as a priority in my life, my marriage took a backseat to my craving for acceptance. And this was not healthy for Hubs’ and my relationship.
How do we determine our personal values?
Determining our personal values begins with understanding how we define our identities. When we believe that God—not people—defines who we are, we are released from the pull to people please. And we can discover what our core values are.
Examples of personal core values
When we consider what God shows us is most important for us, we discover our personal values. Then we can begin to frame our lives around this.
Personal values can include:
For most of us, our relationship with our Father is one of our top (if not our top) priorities. Faith is a value. We make choices to nurture our relationship with God by spending time with Him in His word, prayer, worship, and service.
We are relational creatures, so oftentimes, relationships are a value. For me, my husband is my most important relationship. So, I seek to keep time with him and his needs a top priority. And with our sons launching, time with them is a strong value.
Our work may be a value.
Things we are good at may be a value.
Activities we are passionate about may be a value. For me, that includes writing.
God created each of us with unique bents, talents, hearts, passions, and skills. Knowing ours helps us discern our core values.
I have a friend who says her values are: wife, worshiper, and writer. Not that we need to alliterate ours. But this friend chooses her yeses and nos according to her values.
Truths about personal values
The best way to determine our core values is to ask God for insight. Some of my values change over the years, while others stay the same. As we walk through different seasons, some of our values may shift.
We need to check the motivations behind what we believe are our core values. If an underlying motivation has to do with a fear of rejection, of disappointing others, is based in anxiety, or of anything that even hints at pleasing people, we’d be wise to pray and ask for God’s guidance before declaring that thing a value.
When we know our core values, we will find it easier to know when to say yes or no.
Conclusion
As I laid those internal motivations before the Lord, He began to bring healing to the broken areas in my life. It was only as I did this that I began to understand what my personal values are.
Next time, we’re going to talk more about our yeses and nos and how knowing our personal values will influence our answers.
What about you? How have you defined your personal values? How do your motivations influence your yeses and nos?
***I’m actually traveling with one of our sons today, so I will probably be a little slow in responding and visiting. Thanks for your understanding! 🙂
Next week, we’ll be back at Donna’s place!
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I believe whole-heartedly in knowing our values to help us know when to say yes! I do have to go back and check on what I have discovered my values are from time to time though. How easily I can forget when I get too busy with life. It does have to be intentional. I love how you counselled to go to God first to discover our values. It’s easy to slip into doing it “our way” even when we seek out who we are instead of who God says we are.
Lynn, I love that you are trying to live by your values. Taking time to consider what our values are at a given season in our lives is an important part of the process. I know what you mean about how sometimes our values-based perspectives go out the window when we get too busy. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and encouragements!
This has been a hard lesson for me to learn and I’m still working on it. I hate feeling pressured or guilted into saying “yes” but I also can’t just say “no” as a kneejerk reaction. Learning to take the time when I need to, so I can think and pray about my answer! Visiting from IMM#26
Kym, I’m with you. I hate being guilted into a yes. It can be so hard to place my values as the priority they should be. We really do need to weigh and pray about our yeses and nos, don’t we? I so appreciate you stopping by!
Jeanne, this was something my husband helped me learn. One day he told me that when I was overcommitted the whole family suffered. Ouch. That painful truth set me free.
Debbie, my husband has had to help me too. And yes, at times, it’s been humbling. He reminds me to consider wanting to do what’s good vs wanting God’s best. It’s helpful when I can frame things this way. Thank you so much for sharing your words here!
A thought provoking post Jeanne! Since being diagnosed with Chronic health conditions I have had to learn to say my “best yes” which often means “No” to many things…even having to reevalutate my values in the light of these conditions, in other words priortising what I can do & what I can’t do on a day to day basis.
It hasn’t been easy & after 17 years I still don’t always get it right! I think the hardest for me is having to say no to many family gatherings, although at times I say Yes & push myself above & beyond what I should & pay dearly for it for weeks if not months afterwards.
It’s about getting that fine balance in our values & our choices right which at times with added complications (like chronic health issues) can be awfully tricky!
Blessings, Jennifer
Thanks, Jennifer. Chronic health conditions definitely force us to choose our yeses more wisely. I so appreciate the perspective you add about counting the cost an event—even a family-related one—will have on hour health. Thank you so much for sharing this!
It took me years to learn many of these truths. I was such a people pleaser growing up and into my early adulthood. And I know I still battle it in many ways. But by the grace of God, I have learned to say “no” more often and to not sign up for things that I know I shouldn’t. Sometimes I still feel the need to explain or feel those pangs of guilt. But thankfully, God has helped me so much in this area. Thanks for sharing some great truths with us.
Donna, I am so thankful the Lord enables us to see and make changes that help us to become more like Him. I’m like you, in that, I sometimes feel the compulsion to explain my “nos”. Thank you so much for your encouragement in this space!
This is a truth that many of us might be blind to, so it’s great to have you articulate it, Jeanne, “Determining our personal values begins with understanding how we define our identities. When we believe that God—not people—defines who we are, we are released from the pull to people please.”
Thanks for your encouraging words, Lisa. The older I grow, the more crucial it’s become to lean into thew truth that the Lord is the one who gives us our identities. this seems to be a foundation for many aspects of our lives.
Such an important post, Jeanne! I’ve been doing a deep dive into values the past few months to more clearly define which values are most important to me in which areas of my life. This week I’ve been focusing on relationship values, including authenticity, forgiving, and trusting. But love is the value underlying them all.
Lisa, I love how intentional you’re being with determining your values. Relationship is a high value of mine. I appreciate how you are looking at authenticity, forgiveness, and trusting. These are essential aspects of healthy relationships. Thank you for sharing this!
You’ve given me food for thought, Jeanne! I like to think my yesses are aligned to my values, but I realized as I read it may be time to think about my current values and whether they are aligned with what I say yes to.
Anita, I so appreciate what you said here! I take time at the beginning of each year to consider my personal values in the light of what God’s been working in me and the season I’m in. I like what you said about making sure our current values and our yeses align.
Jeanne, great thoughts here today! While it’s good to have personal values, we can sometimes have good values for the wrong reasons. It’s really a call to be more intentional about knowing our own hearts before the Lord.
You are so right, Donna. Good values for the wrong reason can still lead us to unhealthy places. I love what you say about being intentional to know our own hearts before the Lord.
I tended to say yes to service activities because I thought it was my duty. We are to serve each other–but in coordination with the hierarchy of values God has for us. It took me a long time to learn that just because someone asked me to serve in some way didn’t mean that request was from God.
Barb, like you, I used to have the mindset, “If someone asks, it must be God, so I must say yes.” I’ve learned that is not always the case. I love what you said that we need to serve each other, but in coordination with the personal values God has for us. Great wisdom here!
Pursuant to this, I recently told Barb that I am aware that I sometimes cross the line from hardass to dumbass.
She said, “Sometimes?”
The greatest value left to me,
one I simply won’t let pass,
is taking every chance to be
a true and genuine hardass.
I never took the easy road,
eschewed comfort as a sin,
always picked the biggest load,
and would count it as a win
when the folks who were around
said I worked like a coolie,
and in this high praise I found
that I was quite unduly
driven to push all the more
to the self-love I was looking for.
Andrew, we all seek value somewhere, I believe. I have no doubt you are a strong, hard worker. I appreciate your poem, because it reminds me to evaluate my motives for what I do/how I think I can find my value. Barb sure knows how to hold her own with you, eh? 😉 So thankful for you, friend.