I often feel lost when making decisions about my career and personal life. For a while, I was chasing goals that I felt were important: finishing high school, finishing my undergrad, or going abroad. When I was halfway through my PhD I realised that I wasn't sure what the next 'big thing' was for me. The below framework helped me go beyond ticking one-off goals off an artificial list of things I decided to want to achieve in life. I call this value-based decision-making.
The five core domains to it are as follows:
Values
Principles
Lifestyle
Questions
Actions
Let me explain how it works. Initially, dedicate sufficient time and space to this exercise: from a couple of hours to an entire day. You can use time you spend travelling, or think about some of the below questions as you work out. Later I suggest allocating regular revision times for yourself to check in how you progress. As you get familiar with the method, you will likely spend less and less time with engaging with the exercise.
- Write down your core values.
The beautiful thing about values is that they are unlikely to change, and if they do, the changes are likely to be minor. I define values as a moral code guiding our behaviour. For example, my values include improving societal good, and living a mentally and physically healthy life. I would never trade these two things for anything, and no matter the context, these will always be guiding my decisions.
- Write down your core principles.
Principles are a set of rules according to which we live or work. I see them as more specific than values. You can identify your principles by asking yourself the question as to how you want to live your life or do your work. For example, a core principle of mine is transparency: I want to be able to transparently communicate my opinion, or hear others' opinion at work and in personal life. A workplace that does not allow for that, or a relationship that goes against transparency is not one worth choosing.
- Identify the characteristics of your current lifestyle and the lifestyle you would like to have in a few years.
This step is important as it will help you move towards making decisions about next steps. Write down in details what your current and desired lifestyle looks like. Try and imagine a typical day of yours these days, and what you would like it to look like later. Where do you live? Who do you live with? What do you have in your apartment/room/house? How are the surroundings? At what time do you get up? When do you go to sleep? What do you eat? How much free time do you have? What do you do with that time? And the list goes on.
- Write down your unknowns.
Now that you thought about your values, principles, and lifestyle, take a note of things that are uncertain, write down your questions. This is the list of everything you're not yet sure of, or you need more information about.
Lastly, based on all the above, have a think and write down where you are in life currently. How well are you doing in terms of living by your values and principles? Where are you in the process of moving towards the lifestyle you desire in the future? What are your immediate next steps to move into a direction that is aligned with the four previous points?
The first time I got started with using this framework, I needed an entire day sitting down and thinking through areas of life that are important to me. Since then, I revise my list on an annual basis and check in with myself around new year. I'm finding that my list doesn't really change anymore. This gives me the confidence that I'm certain about what I value in life and according to what principles I want to work and make life decisions. It's also promising that the lifestyle I want to create is consistently the same. It is curious to note that my questions, uncertainties are the same as well: it seems that my blind spots accompany me across life chapters. It is only the action points that I update year by year – giving me the hope that everything is moving in the right direction!
Recently, I have been reading the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) literature extensively. ACT scholars consider values as essential anchor points in driving life decisions. A good starting point if you wish to know more from this field is the book titled The Happiness Trap.
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