Shifting goals to values:
As a person who struggled with pornography I had one goal. Stop looking at pornography.
There is a problem with this. It isn’t that this isn’t a worthy goal. It is.
The problem with this goal is that goals are about finite moments in time.
Goals are about achieving a target at a point, usually, in the future that once passed, will no longer be as relevant to your daily life as it was before you achieved it.
That means, that once this goal is achieved, it stops being relevant, and then becomes something that you are no longer shooting for.
Let me give you an example.
Some of you may have done iron man competitions. WE JUST had the world championship Iron man, here in st g over the weekend.
If you have a goal of racing in the iron man, you’ll do certain things on a set schedule to achieve that goal.
The day of the race comes and goes and the next day you are back to your routine you had before you were training to become an iron man or iron woman. That is what a goals based result looks like.
But what about those people, who for years, keep doing it. They seem to love it. They seem to be doing it as part of who they are, not to simply say they’ve done it.
Often, when I see men or women who come to me after a year or more of not looking at pornography, they have been training hard and achieving a goal.
They have turned things off on their phones. They’ve been careful to not be left alone. They’ve changed certain aspects of their lives as a process of exercising the willpower to achieve a goal.
But the moment it is achieved, it is no longer a goal. And all that work that we’ve done to get to a certain point, may stop happening.
This is what a diet looks like as well.
You stop eating certain foods. Foods that you will go back to once you’ve gotten to x weight.
Then when you achieve x weight, the goal is no longer a goal and you go back to the way you ate before and maybe even worse than before. That is why most people who go on a diet, end up gaining it all back and then some.
The problem is, this goal based system of seeking achievement is not attuned to the long term results you are looking to create.
What you need, what we all need values .
Learning to create a values based decision making process will clean up all the struggle that we have with ourselves and what we aren’t achieving.
First, this week we’re going to teach you about how values work.
Next week we are going to teach you about how to decide what your values are and how to live them more fully.
1. values are here and now. Goals are in the future.
a. So, just like in the case of losing a certain number of pounds or running the iron man, once you’ve achieved your goal to stop looking at pornography, it is no longer a goal.
b. Some of you might be clever and thinking, well, then what if I say, My goal is to never look at pornography ever again.
c. Well, ask yourself, have you ever set a goal that you’ve failed to progress at to the point where you’ve convinced yourself it’s unachievable?
d. So, how do we do this different?
e. we create a value around this
f. I like to use “I” statements for this because they easily capture who we are
g. And by virtue of the nature of “I” statements, they are in the now.
h. “I live chastely” “I keep my commitments to myself sexually” “I choose sexual experiences that create intimacy”
i. These kinds of values are about me, they are about now, and they are not the values of someone who views pornography
j. We can still have goals of eliminating pornography or losing a certain amount of weight, or competing in an Iron man
k. Those goals serve as markers of how we live our values, rather than the substance of our purpose.
l.
2. Values never need to be justified
a. Are a lot like our favorite drink.
b. It’s not really possible to justify why you like a certain type of drink.
c. Mine is root beer.
d. Which I know lots of people disagree with.
e. You’ll rarely have to answer for why you have a value.
f. You’re more likely to need to answer for the actions you take trying to live up to that value.
g. One of our values is that we educate our children
h. Because of this value we’ve chosen to homeschool
i. For which darcy and sometimes I have had some explaining to do.
j.
3. Values often need to be prioritized
a. Living our values sometimes means that we let one value or another take a back seat to values that need to be front and center
b. As a missionary I set aside my values of earning a living and pursuing secular learning
c. When I came home, my values of sharing the gospel and sharing my testimony come up occasionally,
d. But they were no longer my total focus.
4. Values are best held lightly
a. Some values will take priority in our lives at various times,
b. But we also need to be aware that values can change and morph
c. This means that the process of growth in our lives allows us to realize that values are not absolute rules.
d. We also don’t want to focus to closely in on one. But be able to bring values up as needed to keep us moving in the right direction.
e. Much like getting fixated on the speedometer or gas gauge would make it difficult to drive
f. Getting fixated on being too strict with any given value may make it difficult to progress in that value or in others
5. Values are freely chosen
a. This is very much a component of agency,
b. If we want to own our values we must choose them,
c. They must be ours because we want to not because we must
d. Any sense of compulsion is likely to eventually create rebellion.
e.
6. Values include self and others
a. When we live the value of Choosing sexual experiences that create intimacy, that value needs to reflect in our actions for our selves and others.
b. That means that when we think about how our values function and guide our actions, there needs to be consistency
c.
