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Searching for What You Really Value
You either decided to keep your promise to yourself or to buy the prized item, according to your inner priorities. Did your decision square with what you really value in life? Maybe it does; maybe it doesn't. But if you decided to push down the desire to keep a solemn commitment to yourself or to someone else and caved in to a spending desire instead, you may be overriding an important inner Life Value.
Why are values so important? Yes, we know that the word is often overused and sometimes abused. The fact is, though, what we value determines our attitudes and beliefs about the way things are, judgments about the way things should be, the choices we make, and the actions we take. We develop our deepest values through the experiences of a lifetime, from childhood through adulthood.
The values we were taught when we were young - by our parents, secular and religious teachers, culture, and society - often still underlie our attitudes, and ultimately, our choices and our current lifestyles. They are also a driving force behind our major decisions, such as whether to move, get an education, change jobs, buy a new vehicle, or save more for the future. Whenever we make choices, we engage, consciously or unconsciously, in a process that matches our values to our decisions. In other words, we think and feel our way through the choices we make - to have fun, be safe, enjoy privacy and independence, please someone we love, be more attractive, improve our surroundings, take pride in an accomplishment, or achieve other such standards we have set for ourselves.
Without a clear understanding of our values and how we develop them, we would plunge into the decision process with little thoughtful preparation and then react with surprise to our own, a partner's, or a child's strong feelings about this choice or that one.When this happens, there has been a clash of values, an event that can have damaging effects for us and for our loved ones. In most financial decision situations, it is possible to do much better. With "valuesfocused planning," you can cut out the noise and end up much closer to getting what you really care about. Now let's take a closer look at your family history to explore how your values may have been formed in childhood.
How Childhood Dreams Become Adult Habits
Your family history influences your decisions today. Dreams and fantasies about wanting toys, clothes, and other possessions (material and intrinsic) begin in childhood and stay with us more or less over the years. The dream of getting the "treasures" we dream about is both symbolic and literal for children, and the dream endures for many of us throughout adulthood. When you examine more closely your unique money history, including your dreams and fantasies about the way your parents taught you to value money and the things money could buy, you will better understand your own patterns about making meaningful financial decisions today.
Whether spending money, managing money, or making other financial decisions, you can unwittingly reenact your original family culture without being aware of why you are doing it. In fact, you may be imitating a parent's behaviors even when you do not like those behaviors. When you establish a relationship with a partner that will involve joint finances, you now are dealing with the family patterns and cultures from two distinct pasts. Identifying your childhood relationships to money will help give you insight into what you value (or hate) about your financial life today and will allow you to shed the behaviors you have outgrown. The goal is a smooth functioning system that fully reflects your adult values rather than the needs and wants mired in your childhood.
Your Unique Money History
With only a few minutes of serious reflection, you can record vital information about your childhood that will help you understand your relationship to money today.
Step 1: Think carefully about what went on in your childhood and how you interacted with your parents and siblings when it came to your allowance, discussions (or fights) about money, silences when you asked questions, the purchases you made, the "things" that you wanted, how and whether you got them, and the purchases and decisions about money that were made for you.
Step 2:Write a brief description of your most positive childhood memories about money and finances, or the things that you knew that money could buy.What did you enjoy? What were the special features? What made it "special?"
Step 3:Write a brief description of your most negative childhood memories about money and finances, or the things that you knew that money could buy.What did you most dislike? What experiences related to money and finances made you unhappy when you were a child?
Step 4: Now, compare your childhood experiences with your positive and negative financial habits as an adult. Do you recognize any childhood patterns or preferences brought into adulthood? If so, are they compatible with your adult values and lifestyle, or do they cause disharmony?
It is time to claim your own values without ever again having to look back in time.
The Payoffs of Becoming Financially Competent
The payoffs of learning about these influences on your current money behavior patterns can be huge.Ask your partner to complete these exercises too, because the issues you will uncover can help smooth the way for improved communication and mutual understanding. In fact, the relationship benefits that will emerge are immediately transferable to the other personal and professional choices you will make in life. To begin to use your money history to gain insight into your current behaviors, here are three crucial questions to ask yourself before you approach the checkout counter on your next shopping trip:
1. Why do I want to buy this/these items?
2. How do I make spending decisions? Am I actively engaged or passive and reactive?
3. Does my decision-making approach help me or hurt me?
As you become a seasoned observer of your financial behaviors, the answers to these three questions will sharpen. Focusing on these three questions will help you further hone your understanding of your spending patterns. You will discover which purchases are habit-driven or based on satisfying leftover childhood desires, and which ones are truly values-driven, and you can use this insight to purposefully navigate your way through the financial decisions you face every day.