The meaning of values and family

To make positive changes in our lives, our friends’ and family’s lives, and our communities, sometimes all it takes is a little act of kindness and a reimagining of our values.

A simple text message to someone you’ve been meaning to catch up with, paying a compliment to a stranger, picking up a piece of litter on your morning walk, or setting time aside to think about your goals... While seemingly all small tasks, they can each have a meaningful and positive impact.

By being kind, creative, showing gratitude, doing something for the environment, contributing to your communities in some way, you could potentially inspire someone else to pay it forward and pass on that compassion. And all these acts of kindness are based on our values. They may be modest, but these thoughtful actions can collectively, without us realising it, benefit our wider society.

Sometimes, in our busy lives, it is easy for those small acts to slip our minds. But when you are feeling inspired and have the chance to make the effort, you have the opportunity to reconnect with your values.

What are values?

“Values are big ideas that are so important to us that they form the foundation of our lives. Values are immensely powerful! They motivate us, drive our behaviour, ignite passion in our hearts, and explain why we do the things we do and feel the way we feel” says the team behind World Values Day, an annual campaign held on October 20 that encourages us reconnect with what is important to us and share gratitude with the people who put their values into action.

“Values are closely connected with our sense of self – they help make us who we are. They serve as a compass guiding everything we do - our choices and our actions. If we lose touch with that compass, we can make a wrong turn. Our values show us the way.”

With the 2022 theme of ‘Values for Community’, we have the opportunity to discuss how our actions and interactions with our communities, whether at home with the family, in school or work, at clubs and hobbies, or our neighbourhoods, can positively impact collective wellbeing as well as, just as importantly, our own mental health. We value community so highly we've even created our own - The Westerly Club.

Why are values important?

Again, the team behind World Values Day sum this up perfectly: “Values help us to make better choices, develop healthy patterns of behaviour, and maintain meaningful personal relationships. They are the glue connecting us with others and our communities. Harnessing our values strengthens our sense of knowing where we are going and take responsibility for our actions.

“Our values shape our lives. When we live in alignment with them, we tend to be more purposeful and fulfilled. If we are not aligned, we get stressed and unhappy. Recent research shows that even just thinking about our values keeps our neuroendocrine and psychological responses to stress at low levels and helps us to feel content.”

How to identify values

Each and every single one of us has values, even if it takes a little while and some motivation to sit down and reflect on what it is that is important to you, on the qualities that resonate with you and help you to feel fulfilled.

To explore your values and figure out which ones are essential to how you live your life, take a look at this simple but super effective exercise from the World Values Day website.

Making this a family activity

Whether an open and honest conversation about values or taking time to do the above exercise, consider using World Values Day as a chance to learn together as a family, to discuss generosity and the effects putting values into action can have.

We know, thanks to the work of the Campaign for Learning and the Family Learning Festival, which takes place between October 15 and 30, that lifelong active learning and the deepening development of knowledge, understanding, skills, and of course values, leads to widespread positive change. As humans, we all have a natural curiosity, an instinct for sharing our thinking and expanding our understanding, which ultimately not only benefits us as individuals and our sense of happiness, fulfilment and wellbeing, but also benefits the wellbeing of the people in our communities.

Together, through learning about values, you can realise your common aspirations and recognise your differing values, and consider how what you do, the actions you take, can positively impact not just your home, but your many communities outside of your family bubble too.