We often experience heightened depression and anxiety when we feel bad about ourselves and our lives, and feel helpless, and/or hopeless. Today’s activity helps shift that mindset, not by taking the usual route of tackling what’s “wrong,” but by focusing our attention on what really matters.

Data point of the week:
Reflecting on values is a simple yet powerful practice. It’s often used in motivational interviewing to clarify the desire—and find the strength—to create change.

In her awesome book, The Upside of Stress, Kelly McGonigal states that:

“Writing about your values is one of the most effective psychological interventions ever studied.”

And, “People who write about their values once, for ten minutes, show benefits months or even years later.”

These benefits include:

• Improved mental and physical health.

• Increased sense of connection and empathy.

• Feeling stronger, more confident, and more capable of dealing with stress.

• Increased self-control and motivation to follow-through on personal goals.

• Higher academic and professional achievement.
  
  

Reflection
I love this exercise because you can do it on your own, it’s free, and it has an outsized impact for not much effort. Don’t expect to notice immediate results though. The benefits are subtle and cumulative over time.

Spending even a few minutes reflecting on your values connects you to what is most important to you and reminds you of the kind of person you want to be. It focuses your attention on strengths and creates a positive self-narrative that can carry you through the inevitable ups and downs of relationships (and life).

This exercise is one of the 20+ activities I include in the annual Well-being Challenge because of it’s impact on mental health.

Connection Skill & Action Step: Connect with your values
This practice can be used to reflect on what’s important to you in general, or you can focus on your values related to building connection. For example, how you want to show up in your relationships with friends, family, and co-workers? What values are important to you in facilitating connection and community with others?

• Set aside 10 minutes when you won’t be interrupted.

• Look through this list of values. If you like, you can download the pdf, or write in a journal.

• Choose one value that feels relevant and important at the moment. This can be a value that you already embody, or one that is aspirational, that you would like to bring into your relationships more.

• Write freely for 10 minutes about why this value is important to you, how you express it your daily interactions and relationships, and how you would like to express it in the future.

Note: You can do this exercise yourself, or use it with supervisees, in a counseling session, as part of a class, etc.

Questions to reflect on or to spark conversation. Please share your responses in the comments—we love hearing from you!

What values are most important to you in terms of how you show up in friendships? In family relationship? With co-workers?

Do you think it’s important for friends to share your values, or to have friends with different values from your own, or both?