2023 01 07 Living a happier life Tool ACT Values & goals
self-insight understandMyself ACTValues actTherapy
Inspiration from
How to Live By Your Values This Year BY CASEY ROSENGREN
Idea
I am 36 and I have achieved all the goals I set for my life when I was a teenager. I have even achieved things that I never thought I would achieve, like making a triathlon.
After I achieved all my goals, I felt empty. Setting a new goal could have been the next good thing to do, however I knew that after I achieved that, I would feel empty again, and I might not have the life energy to set and pursue new goals.
When I came across the idea that Casey Rosengren is sharing in this post, it resonated with one of the ideas that Mihály Csíkszentmihályi shares in his book Flow, connecting with the joy of doing something just for the sake of doing it, nurturing one's brain with knowledge and ideas that passionate us, is one of the ways to find more joy in life. Idea also shared by Martin Seligman in his seminal book Authentic Happiness, where he explains: there are three types of happiness: * The first type, such as getting pleasure out of something, like eating a chocolate. You get the pleasure of it, but the happiness it gives you fades the longer you repeat the action. * The second type, such as doing something you like that involves your brain or/and body, such as programming (in my case), playing an instrument, playing sports, teaching. The core of this type of happiness is that when you do it, you get in the flow, you forget about time and space, you enter in a sort of meditative space where you and the activity only exist. This is a type of happiness that endures more than the first one. * The third type, when you do the activity that gets you into the flow, for a meaning that is bigger than yourself. This type of happiness is more permanent, you might have ups and downs, and independently in the place you are in a given moment, you find meaning on doing the thing you do.
Coming back to the idea of Casey Rosengren, she says that having clarity over one's values, is a more sustainable way to come to a happier life. Instead of setting something like doing a triathlon this year, as my north star, I could identify the value behind such as living an adventurous life, or having challenges, or improving my physical and metal health. Decoupling the milestone of the triathlon, from the actual thing that makes me happy. She puts it this way:
Since ACT comes from behavioral psychology, it approaches values as behaviors. As Jenna Lejeune puts it in her book, Values in Therapy, values are about “verbs and adverbs.” To get at a person’s values, you can ask: * What would you be doing if you were living meaningfully? (verb)
- How do you want to show up to whatever you’re doing? (adverb)
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Moreover, values are about things we move toward, not things we move away from. “Not being afraid” isn’t a value, but “living courageously” could be.
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Another way we think about values in ACT is as meaningful life directions, whereas goals are milestones on the path.
Unorganised research on ACT
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a “third-wave” cognitive behavioral intervention aimed at enhancing our psychological flexibility (Hayes et al., 2006).
Rather than suppress or avoid psychological events, ACT is based on the belief that acceptance and mindfulness are more adaptive responses to the inevitabilities of life.
Source: https://positivepsychology.com/act-worksheets/
Worksheets
https://positive.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Personal-Values-Worksheet.pdf
https://loving.health/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/ACT-values.pdf
https://www.actmindfully.com.au/upimages/2016_Complete_Worksheets_for_Russ_Harris_ACT_Books.pdf
My own funeral questions
- What they would like to have accomplished?
- What kind of a person would they like to be remembered as?
- What qualities would be mentioned?
- How would they have contributed to or shaped others’ lives?