Have you heard people say their family is important to them, yet they never spend time with them? That is a simple example of stated values that are incongruent with actions.

If your values and needs don’t match exactly with your PSI score, don’t worry. You have permission to have flexibility in your values list.

Values Have Related Needs and Fears

Needs and fears are opposite sides of the same coin; they function as a balancing scale. When needs are adequately met, fears decrease. If needs are consistently unmet, fears increase. For example, if you have a high need for acceptance, you will have a greater fearof rejection than a person with a low need for acceptance.

When I use the word fear, I mean the fears common in everyday life that produce feelings of insecurity and stress and that reduce our levels of personal effectiveness and fulfillment.

Your values, needs, and fears are conveyed through your feelings and through your behavior and decisions. You have positive feelings when your needs are being satisfied and negative feelings when your needs go unfulfilled.

For example, I feel better when I achieve a goal than when I fail. Negative feelings are signals to you and to others that you are not satisfied with something in a particular situation.

When needs are consistently unfulfilled, fears develop. Those fears have their source in particular needs that, over time, have gone unmet by people or situations in a person’s environment.

Note:    The fears we are discussing here are quite different from phobias, which are fears deeply rooted in a belief system.

Small fears that are based on internal needs from within your personality can develop into larger ones if negative conditions prevail for a long period.

High-level fears, once established, can have ongoing repercussions in a person’s life and they continue to reflect the unmet, intensified needs of the past.

Needs Prompt Behavior

In contrast, fears can override or stem our natural impulse to take action. Fears also can provoke less desirable behavior, such as dishonesty and deceit.

During one of my consulting visits at an auto dealership, a sales rep said he valued honesty. But, according to him, if he were 100% honest during the sale, his sales manager would fire him. He insisted he valued honesty and that’s why he felt physically ill when he was directed to omit certain details about some of the used cars being offered to potential clients.

My challenge to him was that he was living situational values—important only at certain times and negotiable at others.

Was honesty really a value for him?

Fear of losing his job threatened that sales rep’s value of honesty. By his actions, his value of job security was more important than honesty. In other words, he sold out on his value of honesty.

In a lively discussion during one of our values seminars, a participant suggested that if people really valued something other than what they are doing, they would choose to do it. He stated that each of our lives, at this very moment, reflects our true values.

Although that seems a logical concept, it assumes

In my experience with thousands of individuals, those two points are simply not true.

No matter what approach I tried, the cultural pressure and expectations were greater than the lifestyle that would have been fulfilling to the son and his values.

Because there can be considerable variation in our personal values, there can be vast differences in the values we attach to an event. For example, I may rate variety highly. That will be manifested in the number of new experiences and activities I seek. It may be revealed in my choice—or my desire to choose, if the means and opportunity presented themselves—to travel all over the world, visiting or living in many different countries.

In contrast, perhaps you prefer security. You may desire freedom from debt to other people—both financial obligations and moral responsibilities. As a result, you may be more likely to avoid risks and to settle for your existing circumstances and routine. That may be reflected in your being content to live in the same house for 20 years.

I may be more willing to take chances than you are, especially ones where I risk security to get variety. On the other hand, you may be more likely to move cautiously when dealing with financial matters, particularly ones that have a long-term impact, such as mortgages and insurance policies.

Whether our lives turn out successfully and we achieve happiness and satisfaction is determined by many other factors, not the least of which is the amount of information we have available at the time we make the choices.

Most people learn to accept values differences in others as a “fact of life.” Yet often, when adjustments cannot be made, conflict occurs.

Anger often indicates that one or more individuals in a conflict strongly value whatever issue he or she feels is at stake.

What you consider most rewarding is directly related to what is most valuable to you. Consequently, values are like inner goals that each individual hopes to achieve while interacting with others and the environment. An example of this concept in action can be seen when groups of people get together for a collective effort. Teamwork is accomplished when the individuals on the team have common goals and values.

Groups that have members with similar values and goals work better together because motivational drives within the individuals in the group are going in similar directions.

It is safe to say that, given a choice, most of us would probably choose all the values listed. But we are limited by the amount of time and energy we have. When we work hard to acquire one value, we often eliminate opportunities to obtain other values.

For example, valuing “challenge” might encourage one father, but not another, to seek out personal experiences—such as flying alone to Africa for a safari vacation—that would take time and resources away from his family. While that meets a personal need of his, it comes at the expense of the needs of other family members.

We have linked the values to their related needs. Reflect on how your needs and values are being realized or omitted.

What about you?

One individual may find that seeing good friends for a couple of hours once a week is enough to satisfy that value and have his or her needs met. Another person might require double or triple that amount of time to meet the friendship need.

The energy we invest also influences our needs level. Going to a private dinner with close friends is much different than attending a large party or a BBQ with them.

As you proceed with the next step, please be as honest as possible in determining whether your personal needs and values are being met from the perspective of both time and energy.

During this exercise in one of our workshops, a 23-year-old male at the back of the room was in tears. I went to talk to him at the break to find out what was happening for him. He had concluded that not one of his top 7 values was being realized. I asked if he had any insight into why that was the case. He said he lived at home with his parents and that for his whole life, he had been doing what his parents wanted—not what was important to him.

His tears came from the realization that his life did not reflect his core values.

Instructions: Values, Time, and Energy Exercise

Review or transfer your top 7 values to the following blank list. Place your number 1 value in the number 1 position and so on, up to 7. Once you have completed the transfer, carefully reflect on each value to establish whether you honestly feel that your needs related to that value are currently being met, from both a time and an energy perspective.

Make sure you consider your entire life—not just work and/or home.

If you wish, you may rank your values from 1 to 10.

  1 = not met at all

10 = being completely fulfilled

Once you have confirmed your current time and energy status for each value, summarize what you need to do to continue to keep a (+) there—or, if you responded with a (-), what you need to change to make it a (+).