Life is all about searching for ways to be happy, to feel good about ourselves and the life we lead. If you’ve been having your ups and downs lately and have been struggling to find meaning in your life, this article provides a fundamental guideline on how to give your life more value. Keep on reading to learn some tips on identifying your values in life.
Sometimes you aren’t happy with your circumstances and what life has given you. Ultimately, you start questioning the value of life while searching for meaningful and good things in it. A point to ponder here, does that moaning and groaning help you? Well, no, it doesn’t. Since you end up only seeing the bad in your life and overlook all the good in it, life can seem meaningless sometimes. If you’ve been wondering how to give your life more value, you need to think big and start seeing the value of life in everything.
The very first step in making your life more valuable starts with yourself; knowing and understanding yourself. Most of the time, it takes ages for people to discover themselves, their psyche, and the way they want to live their lives. People aren’t aware of their own potentials and worth, and it can affect their lives a lot. Be it personal or professional life, feelings of unworthiness can hamper your ability to shine and grow.
When we don’t feel worthy enough, we tend to self-sabotage and avoid going or asking for what we deserve. And that’s where things start taking the wrong turn. When you let others’ opinions infiltrate your lives, you are basically shaping your life according to how other people want you to be, not how you yourself want it to be. That is a huge question mark on identifying your own values and beliefs. And a very crucial step in bringing value to your life is to take it into your own hands and shape it the way you want.
Self-worth is one of the few things that have a thermostat in our lives, playing an integral role in how we see and treat ourselves in everyday life. If you are looking for ways to add value and meaning to your life, this article is a definitive guide to learning how to give your life more value and identify your beliefs and self-worth.
Table of Contents
Why is it important to have value in your life?
Before moving on to find out how to give your life more value, it is essential to know why you must add value to your life and why it’s important to prioritize real value over momentary happiness.
The real value of life lies in determining what you want in life and how you feel about yourselves. When you are able to answer such questions, you are one step closer to having an ideal and valuable life. There’s this famous saying by Ann Landers, “Too many people today know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” This is very well said, especially in today’s era when people prefer materialistic things over real value in life.
If you think “things” can bring value to your life, that’s where you need to rethink the actual perspective of life, which goes way beyond worldly things. Suppose you bought your dream car. Yes, you are head over heels and feel great about this achievement. But what about two to three years later? Will you feel the same that time as well?
Adaption is a part of human nature. Because of this hedonic adaptation, we adapt very quickly to the situations around us. So after a month or so, you won’t see or feel the difference anymore between the time before and after you bought the new car. You’ll get used to driving your car every day, and the car will lose its value in your eyes day by day. You won’t be as happy as you were when you first bought it. So the myth of having value and happiness with things like cars, houses, and other worldly pleasures has been busted.
That’s why it is crucial to have real value in life and to figure out how to achieve it. When you’re on a search for value, you will often prioritize your peace, satisfaction, and calmness over happiness and short-lived pleasures. Only the things that give you eternal peace are worth being present in your life. And those are the things that provide real value to your life.
Developing a discipline of observing instead of ignoring and doing rather than neglecting can help shape your life positively. Every time you choose action over comfort, you will develop self-confidence, and your value of life will increase.
How to know what we want and value?
If you are not aware of what you value the most in life, how can you proceed with adding value to your life? Knowing yourself, what you want in life, and how you want to live life is the basis of adding value to your life. When you have decided to add more meaning and value to your life, you better start asking yourself some essential questions. What brings peace to your life? How can you be happier? What makes you the most satisfied?
The personal understanding you get when you confront your fears and find yourself closest to your conscience ultimately allows you to know what you value and what you do not. You’ll find value in life while searching for internal enrichment. Whenever you are honest with yourself about listening to your heart, your most brilliant desires, and your goals for life, that is when you reach your emotional peak to identify what you want in your life.
How to give your life more value?
Life is too short to do nothing. Time is an interesting and exciting concept to think about when it comes to reaching your full potential and making the most out of your life. By learning how to value your time, you can be proactive in making sure that you’re spending your time and energy in the right places. This way, you’ll be able to focus on what’s important and meaningful in your life.
Self-worth basically refers to the feeling that you are a good person who deserves to be treated the same good way you treat others. When you align yourself to your self-worth, you are giving more value to your life and allowing for more actionable steps that grow and further nurture that worth.
To help you start this journey of finding value in your life, we will share some essential tips on identifying your values and beliefs in life and then working to achieve them in practicality. These simple and easy-to-follow guidelines can help you subtly change how you live your life and perceive the world.
- Understand the value of everything
- Give value to feel valuable yourself
- Value your time to make the most of it
- Stick to a healthy diet and lifestyle
- Keep your promises and stay true to your commitments
- Do not let yourself be stranded in the past
These tips can prove to be life-changing if followed consistently. Let’s have a closer look at them so that you can understand them clearly and try them out.
Understand the value of everything
The first and the most critical step in finding value in life is to identify and understand the importance and value of everything around you. In order to add more value to your life, you must realize that everything is valuable and has a purpose in life. Most people don’t know the value and significance of most of the things in life and end up complaining about having an invaluable life. But the thing is that if you don’t believe in the value of life, you’ll never see it.
“I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always triumph eventually, and that there is a purpose and worth to each and every life,” says the beautiful inscription on the memorial site of former USA president Ronald Reagan in Simi Valley California.
In order to see the value of everything, you need to be alert and sensitive to what is happening around you. It happens quite often that the most extraordinary opportunities are hidden in plain sight or among other seemingly insignificant events.
Your life can be extremely valuable, just the way you want it to be. But it all depends on how you perceive the value and purpose of your surroundings. You’ll have to open your eyes and be willing to see the value in everything. When you start appreciating and seeing value in even the smallest of things, you’ll naturally begin to see value in your life. Moreover, you have an obligation towards life to witness and value its beauty.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You must learn to value everything, be it tiny or enormous, in your life because otherwise, you never see the good in life, and life becomes useless.
Give value to feel valuable yourself
One of the best ways to feel valuable is to provide value to others and to be kind and gentle. There’s no doubt that the actual value of life lies in giving value to others and helping them when they’re at their worst. It’s a “give and take” sort of thing; you can’t have value in your life unless you give it to others as well. Knowing that everyone is fighting a battle of their own that only the person itself knows about, being kind is the best thing humanity needs right now.
When you provide value without any expectations of receiving anything in return, the internal satisfaction you feel at that moment is beyond describable. That happiness you see on others’ faces all because of your little kind gesture can help you find that internal enrichment that you are searching for. That’s why it is important to put out into the world what you want back. This self-awareness can give you the ability to appreciate things for what they are.
Being of service and providing value contains the requirement that you give unconditionally. Giving with expectation is not really giving; it’s simply trading. Yes, you will get what you want eventually because goodness always returns and comes back to you. When you provide value to others, the void that’s created is filled by the universe in return.
The act of giving does not only make you feel good; it’s contagious as well. Giving makes everyone happy; you, the person you’re helping, and the ones watching this generous act. According to the research that tracked 200 people over five years, those who described themselves as ‘very happy’ were the ones who volunteered on a monthly basis. So you see, providing value for others can make you feel valuable yourself.
Value your time to make the most of it
Time is an interesting concept to think about and also one of the things to have a direct impact on our lives. When utilized properly, you can make the most of your time and make some of your most memorable moments. On the other hand, if not organized properly, you can run out of opportunities very quickly. By learning the essence of valuing your time, you can be proactive in making sure that you’re spending your time and energy in the right places. This way, you’ll be able to set aside and focus on more important and meaningful things in life.
When you value your time, you’re actually adding value and meaning to your life. The first step in valuing your time is to get organized and assess yourself on how you’re spending your time. This way, you can plan how you are going to spend your time and energy in the future. Start by making a list of things you do and what you want to do. Write down your daily goals and create daily to-do lists. You’ll notice, very soon, that you are starting to have more time for doing the things you want to do.
Make your time valuable, worthwhile, and much more exclusive by setting limits and saying no to certain things that others want from you. Moreover, you must also give yourself time to not only plan for the future but also reflect on the past. This doesn’t mean that you should dwell in your past and stay there forever. You simply need to reflect on how effective you’ve been recently and what improvements you need to make in the future for a better and more valuable life. You can win this life game by simply staying productive and putting your efforts and time in the right places.
Stick to a healthy diet and lifestyle
Did you know that your health has direct effects on your mental condition? Well, a healthy lifestyle can not only keep your body healthy, but it can also nourish your mind and soul to achieve that inner enrichment that you’re seeking eventually. If you want to give your life more value and do what you want, you won’t be able to achieve your goals without a healthy mind and body.
And if your body doesn’t accompany you on this journey of finding value for life, who else will? You are your biggest companion, so make sure you are healthy enough to get to the end. If you have any disease, start with treating yourself the right way and adhering to a healthy diet. Being in good physical shape is equally important for the mind and body.
When you’re healthy, you can love yourself more and become more aware and able to find what brings value and meaning to your life. In this manner, exercising can help immensely; it can help to take care of and maintain a balanced body weight and protect your immune system.
Lifestyle basically refers to our way of life, how we deal with things happening in our life, how we confront our problems, and how we handle our personal relationships. Opting for a particular lifestyle means that you’re deciding how you want to live. When you reach a balance between your body and mind, you will lead a healthier life and be able to share the best of your heart and yourself with others.
Ultimately, your health is the baseline for what you’ll be able to achieve in life and how much energy you have to spend on doing other intentional things in your life. This means you need to make sure that your health is optimal at all times and that you’re taking care of it the right way.
Keep your promises and stay true to your commitments
You can only add value to your life when you are at peace with yourself. And that includes keeping the promises that you make to yourselves as well as others and staying true to your commitments. When you live up to your promises, it helps you build trust among others and get confident in yourself, which eventually leads to a better perspective of your worth. These promises don’t have to be big; you can start by achieving the goals in life that you’ve promised yourself.
However, these daily goals must not be unreasonable, extra complicated, or time-consuming. Start by setting achievable daily goals every morning, and if you achieve those goals, you’ll be able to take pride in your successes each day. Sticking to this daily goal challenge can really elevate your general outlook, and if you achieve happiness every day, then you are definitely winning in life. You will start experiencing a higher success rate, and your worthiness thermostat will turn up simultaneously.
By keeping simple promises and achievable goals and then going above and beyond, you not only build confidence in yourself but also boost your ability to follow through. Make sure that your goal-achieving and promise-keeping habits have consistent and persistent behavior, allowing you to enjoy pursuing your potential by creating objectives and meeting them. And when you know you are an achiever, you feel worthy and capable of even more remarkable achievements.
Do not let yourself be stranded in the past
It is natural and normal that as time passes by, your body drags with it an emotional weight of all the bad moments that have happened in your life and have taught you a lesson. But you shouldn’t turn to those moments very often, or in other words, you shouldn’t live in your past. Letting your dark and painful past moments go is very important for internal growth. Love yourself, accept the mistakes you made in your past, and take them as experiences that let you improve in the future.
Do not let yourself be stranded in your past; you should learn from it instead and be open to changing the detrimental habits from your past. From choosing a different career to taking a step back from a toxic relationship, you can change anything that’s not adding value to your life. Whatever the change, embracing and accepting it can kick out the stress from your life. So, just go along with life and try to enjoy the ride.
Ending thoughts
With all this value in your life, you are well on your way to practicing mindfulness and living your life to the fullest. Put these tips into practice to achieve internal enrichment and immense positivity in life. You’ll soon realize that small steps indeed matter a lot and help you achieve great things and reach the places you want to go.
Valuing yourself and identifying your self-worth is the core principle of adding value to your life. The steps you take to actionably align yourself to that worth define the purpose of self-value. And these steps are anything but complex and time-consuming. These small yet potent changes can make all the difference for yourself and the greater good of life.
Whatever phase of life you’re in, just remember that every stage has its benefits and comes with inevitable ups and downs. So, make sure to make the most of where you are today because life is short. Hope this article has answered your question of how to give your life more value. If you wish to make a lasting improvement to your self-worth, you need to follow the tips described above and embrace the principles of identifying value in everything, giving value, keeping promises, setting realistic goals, and raising the bar every once in a while.
Ultimately, you need to take charge of your life by being accountable and living above the line of blame, shame, and justification. This guide defines strategies that are well worth your time if you want to add value to your life. Give these tips your best shot to have a valuable life.
