“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
Lewis Carroll
I hate to fly. Whenever I’m presented with the opportunity to take a trip, big or small, that requires an airplane, I usually torture myself by debating about whether to go. I hardly ever give a quick yes, even if it’s something I—or at least part of me—really want to do. The utter discomfort of plane travel always makes me withhold my yes.
So I was surprised by my friend Ally’s own trip. The last time I saw Ally, she was suffering from brutal jet lag because she’d just returned from a quick trip to Thailand. She’d traveled thirty hours and flown literally halfway around the world to spend just four days on the ground. I’m always curious about what compels people to take those thirteen-hour flights. I’m not sure I could do it myself, so whatever awaits them on the other end must be really worth it.
At the time, Will and I were debating whether to take a long trip of our own. Long for us, that is. We were considering a December trip to Scotland, and though our longest flight would “only” be nine hours, that was still far too long by my standards. By the time I saw Ally, we’d already been waffling for a while. I wanted to go, but I did not want to get on that plane, and that had kept me from saying yes. I knew I was overthinking it, because instead of working on solving the problem, I was obsessing about the unpleasantness of the flight and the inconvenience of the timing. The flight didn’t make it an automatic no, but I needed a compelling reason to get on that plane. I didn’t know how to approach the decision. How could I know if this trip was worth taking?
But here Ally had gone off to Thailand. She already traveled regularly for work and wasn’t eager to leave town any more than she had to. And she had still said yes to a demanding trip halfway around the world. Why?
With my own looming travel decisions firmly in mind, I told Ally how much I hated to fly and that I was impressed by what her own trip had demanded of her. “Was it tough to decide?” I asked, expecting the answer to be an emphatic yes.
“Not at all,” she said. “When I found out about the trip, I didn’t have to think about it. I didn’t even wait to hear the details. I just said, ‘Yes! Let’s go.’”
How was this possible? I couldn’t believe it, yet I knew Ally wouldn’t make such a decision lightly. She’s not impulsive by nature, so I was struck by her decisiveness, which couldn’t have been more different from my ongoing deliberations about international travel. How on earth did she do it?
Our Values Can Drive Our Decisions
Ally said the choice was easy because she didn’t have to think about it. Long ago, she made a single decision that continues to influence her ongoing decisions, both big and small, and her Thailand trip was one of them.
Ally explained that her decisions today flowed naturally out of her core values—values she had decided would guide her future decision-making. She told me she’d been in an abusive marriage for a few years, but thanks to help from strong friendships and support networks, she was able to find her way out. Because of her past, today Ally springs into action for abused women as a way to give back what was given to her. Anytime she has an opportunity to serve women who have been exploited, neglected, or abused in any way, she responds by opening her checkbook, participating in the fund-raising event, meeting with a stranger to chat, even saying yes to the trip halfway around the world. Whenever she’s invited to support, equip, and empower women who have been exploited, abused, or manipulated, Ally says yes—even if she needs to rearrange work and travel schedules or the cost is substantial.
Because Ally has this big-picture value firmly in place and consciously relies on it when making decisions, she doesn’t agonize about how to spend her time, money, and energy. When a choice that involves women who have been exploited, neglected, or abused presents itself, she barely has to think about what to do. In the same way, when we have a broader vision for our lives, many of the decisions we face become simple, because we have a reliable framework for making them. Because we made a single decision—that is, deciding on a big-picture value—we can see all other decisions as parts of a whole instead of as an endless string of isolated decisions. When a decision touches on our values, we have little to think about. With our internal world in order, we can move outward in the right direction. These values can guide our lives in the big pieces and the day-to-day stuff. Whether we’re going to Thailand or the grocery store, what we do can flow naturally out of who we are.
How Our Values Impact Our Decision-Making
We all face numerous decisions every day. Some are significant, like flying across oceans. Some are quotidian, like choosing what’s for dinner. Some are unavoidable, some we invite into our lives. But all these decisions demand our attention. We can streamline them, harnessing this values-driven approach to decision-making by identifying what matters to us. Our values can guide decisions big and small, short-term and long-term.
Our Values Can Clarify Our Objectives
When I began questioning people whose decision-making process I admired, people whom I knew not to be overthinkers, it was uncanny how often they used the same word: values or values-driven. They echoed Ally, saying they try to make decisions based on who they are and what they care about. Naming these values clarifies their objectives and keeps them out of the weeds of day-in and day-out decisions.
Here’s an example of what it can look like to stay out of the weeds. Earlier this year, Will and I were in the fortunate position of needing to choose between two good schooling options for one of our kids, and we were struggling. How could we know which one would suit us best? I asked my friend, a retired schoolteacher, for her thoughts.
“I can’t tell you what you should do,” she said, “but I know how I would decide.” When she’s debating between options, she always gives preference to the one closer to home, because she wants her life to be rooted in her neighborhood as much as possible. She wants to actually know her neighbors, and she doesn’t want to spend her life in the car. So when she’s deciding between multiple options, she chooses the option closest to home unless there is a persuasive reason not to. This holds true for big decisions, like choosing which school to attend, and smaller ones, like where to buy groceries or get her hair cut or find a book club. She wants to live her life in actual physical community, and she welcomes the opportunity to bump into her neighbors at carpool or her fellow book club members at the grocery store.
I nodded as my friend described her big-picture value of community, recognizing that Will and I valued this same thing. In fact, we’d moved to our current home a few years ago because the new location aligned more clearly with our values: we were seeking a neighborhood that was more walkable, closer to the places we already spent our time, and more diverse, both racially and socioeconomically.
As my friend described her family’s schooling choices, I realized our common value of community could guide my own family’s schooling decisions as well—and our excruciating choice suddenly became a lot easier. And so this year, my son transferred to a new school just a few blocks from our home. Now we walk to school and see school families in the neighborhood and bump into them at the library. This choice has felt right for who we are as a family, because it reflects what we care about.