On being better: Finding connections with our values

Andrew Beer Ph.D. :

In at least one way, I’m like most people-I’m often thinking about ways I could be better. There are moments when, upon immediate reflection, I realize I could have taken a better course of action, and often in these moments I silently pledge to take a better action when similar circumstances present themselves in the future. Alas, the future often arrives and finds me inclined to do the same things again. Here, I also believe I am not alone, else the self-help section of bookstores would be less crowded, nor would there exist the burgeoning literature on intentional personality trait change, a topic about which I have written before in this space.
Shortly after I delved into personality change literature, I decided I might want to dip my toe in these waters, merging personal and professional interests. So during a sabbatical a couple years ago, I spent a substantial amount of time researching some relevant topics with an eye toward devising my own study of how to help people change their behaviors for the better. In the end, I decided to try to import some concepts from the literature in clinical psychology-wherein we attempt to remedy concerns in behavior, cognition, and/or emotion-to situations not necessarily aimed at remedy but simply improvement, regardless of current level of distress.
In keeping with this philosophy, what I designed was something that probably falls under the umbrella of a Positive Psychology Intervention (for a review see Carr et al., 2020), and the specific methodology that I chose drew upon principles from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT; Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 2011), which seeks to connect behavior and personal values to positive ends./
In an effort to help people behave more in line with their chosen values, I meet with them and ask if there’s any behavior in their life in which they would like to engage more often. This initial answer takes a variety of forms, such as “spend more time with my grandmother” or “exercise” or “strengthen my relationship with God.” My only rule is that it must be a concrete behavior you wish to do more and over which you must have at least some degree of control. So, in the instance of strengthening a relationship with God, we discuss the specific things one might do (e.g., pray, read a religious text, etc.). Once we identify the desired behavior, we seek to connect it to a personal value. I often get here by repeatedly asking “why” like a five-year-old (why spend time with grandma?), which is annoying, but mostly effective.
The preceding example behaviors might be derived from personal values of family, personal health, and spirituality. From there, I ask the person to think of one more behavior that would be in line with that value. Next, we walk through internal and external forces that result in this behavior either occurring or not occurring in this person’s life at the moment, which helps us generate some possible interference behaviors. This is often scrolling on a phone or something akin to this, but it can be anything that one might do instead of the desired behavior when they encounter the possibility of engaging in the desired behavior. Sometimes, this is just plain avoidance or even things that might be otherwise positive or goal-directed like working or cleaning. In such cases, we only attend to times when we engaged in the behavior instead of thing we are trying to do more of. We conclude this session with a list of two desired behaviors and two behaviors that might interfere with our aspirations.
The author is a Professor of psychology at University of South Carolina.