Close the ‘Gap’ Between Values and Desires For a Better Life
Several times a day my daughter Sweet P will be in her bedroom at the end of the hall and it is in this moment, when she’s as far away as possible from me, that she will decide she wants to have a conversation.
So, she’ll start hollering. “M-aaa-mmm-aaaaaaa. M-aaa-mm-aaaaa!”
Being the mother that I am, I will holler back: “STOOOPPPPP YELLLLINNNGGGG.”
This will go on a few more seconds before she comes out to talk to me. Of course it drives me crazy, her hollering from the back room. But the irony – that I’m yelling to get her to stop yelling – is not lost on me. And it’s only been since I stopped hollering back, that the scenario has changed. When I started behaving in a way that is congruent with what I say, things changed for the better.
The same thing can happen between our values and how we live with them at work, at home, in our communities and within ourselves. When we are not living our values we create a gap that undermines our potential and, to get technical, leaves us feeling icky.
Bridging the Gap
In her fabulous new book Daring Greatly, Brene’ Brown talks about the gaps between what we practice and what we aspire to. She calls the gap “the disengagement divide”
When there is a significant gap between what we practice and what we say we practice, a difference between how we live and how we aspire to live, people check out. We become uninterested, disengage. We turn toward apathy, which is a killer. As the gap grows into a psychic Grand Canyon, we disconnect, stop participating, lose our passion and life becomes blah and uninspired.
When you narrow that gap, though, and live close to the values you profess, you tend to feel more creative, inspired, connected, engaged. Of course, as Brown points out in her book, you are also more vulnerable and that can be freaking scary, but isn’t living in the blah zone a scary prospect too?
From this gray place of disengagement and disconnection there never really is any joy. You are prone to live a fuzzy black and white version of your life instead of a high-definition one filled with bold colors.
Happiness is a By-product of Bold Living
In my book Imperfect Spirituality, I talk about living in alignment with the values that you aspire to. While happiness is usually fleeting, the result of a fantastic moment or event, sustained happiness occurs when we know what we value and we engage in life in a way that supports that.
Researcher Steven Reiss studied this extensively and found that values-based happiness emerges when we derive satisfaction from behaving in way that is congruent with our values and purpose.
Yet, in order to do that, or even come close to it, we have to know where we stand now; to know what matters and find the courage to honestly evaluate how we are living now.
Then, we can close the gap between what we practice and what we aspire to and open the door to our greatest possibility. Only then do we become fully engaged in our own life.
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