Values Revisited

Welcome to the last lesson of the Beliefs theme in this final spiral of Self Loyalty School. Years ago, I saw a State Farm Insurance commercial with a man in fishing gear. He has a dollar bill on a fishing rod, and the girl who wants to buy a new purse keeps grabbing after it. In response, he pulls it back—laughing hysterically the whole time.

Sometimes life feels like that fishing rod and at the end is whatever carrot we deem important. With High Functioning Anxiety, our unhealthy coping skills encourage us to over-function—we can get focused on the chase and what we are chasing becomes secondary. We're chasing after it thinking if only we can catch it, we will be ok. So we check things off the to-do list, stay on top of things, chasing that ever-elusive carrot, the holy grail that sends the message; if only I could get the carrot, then I would be ok.

For most of my twenties, I chased whatever goal my friends and family told me:

What job to have, where to live, and even what trips to take.

I was so good at following rules and over-functioning that, by default, I just stayed focused on whatever my family and friends told me a good person should want. I got so good at chasing other people's goals of money and success that I forgot to ask myself whether I wanted the goal in the first place. In my mid-30s, I was working as an assistant in a job I didn't enjoy (because someone told me it would be a good job), l owned a house that belonged to my brother, but I didn't love it. And I was dating a guy who was a jerk. He lied and was passive-aggressive but made good money all because other people told me I should date someone professional who made good money. With all of these goals dictated by others, my anxiety was through the roof, and I had no clue what self-loyalty looked like. I was chasing the State Farm agent's carrot. And that carrot kept changing, growing, and moving, and I never actually got it.

The carrot is the college degree, the spouse, the kids that have enough money to be comfortable having enough money for retirement, sending the kids to college, being happy in your career, getting a vacation home, and the carrot list goes on.

In theory, The carrot could be awesome. It represents our end goal priorities. For me, right now, that carrot could look like writing, traveling with my husband, and spending as much time as possible with family.

The problem with the carrot is when it doesn't represent anything except the next "thing."

So today, I want you to pause from all that carrot chasing for a moment and ask yourself to define your carrot.

What does success look like to you? Is success a big house, a new car, eating out every night of the week, or having a flexible schedule to spend time with family and friends?

Maybe success is having a community of friends who gather and chat about politics, art, and activism, or maybe success is more about having an education. Success can have many definitions, but what does success mean to you? Not your parents, not your neighbors or your partner, but you.

This is why your values are so important. They come in tandem with your personal definition of success.

Knowing my Values allows me to chase the carrot that I want to be chasing.

This helps in 3 ways:

1. Life is just more fulfilling when I am chasing a goal that I want to be chasing. Back to the idea I talked about at the end of Week 1 of Beliefs, I will be more productive when I am working from the place of self-loyalty and the Biggest Fan rather than the Monger.

2. When my anxiety is high, I start questioning everything in my life—especially the goal I am chasing. My temptation is to blow everything in my life up because THEN it will be better. I can come back to my values to recalibrate myself.

3. When I start doubting my goals because of a setback, My Monger will step in and convince me I need new goals, and I need to get everyone's feedback to set those goals. But comparing myself to others will just make my anxiety worse. KNOWING my values will bring me back to myself.

Again there's going to be some grief when we realize that we were chasing carrots that weren't our top priority. And we realize, wait a minute, I have options here. I don't have to work a job I hate to get the house and the car when I don't value the house and the car.

My life now is very different from my 20s and 30s. Because I live it from my values of integrity, humor, relationships, health, and empathy on a daily basis, I come back to these values. Don't want to have a tough conversation? My Biggest Fan will remind me that I value relationships and empathy, inspiring me to make the phone call and have the tough conversation—with a bit of humor thrown in.

I tell myself that a piece of my writing is good enough, knowing it probably needs more revision. My biggest fan says, " Hey, you value your integrity—let's get back in there and revise it again.

But living by your values isn't all sunshine and roses. I had a client, Pam, who wanted to return to school to get her law degree. This required her to leave her high-paying corporate job and downsize. She also disappointed her father, who hated lawyers! "I want to live by my values, but it is hard!" Pam lamented one day. Yep-I said it requires a lot of calling in the biggest Fan.

A few years later, after Pam had graduated, she emailed me to share that she was working at a small legal aid firm and loved it! "I don't make nearly as much money as I used to, and that is hard, but my anxiety is much less since I am doing something I love. I feel like my whole life has become brighter. I have a fun new home, my friends are more aligned, and I feel more at ease. Don't get me wrong, my anxiety shows up, and my Monger is still there, but it is much easier to quiet her when I keep returning to my values."

I often remind myself at the end of the day, I will look back on my life and say, did I make decisions based on how I wanted to live my life? Did I chase the carrot that I wanted to be chasing? That's the most important part.