Your Beliefs vs Your Values
““A strong sense of self should not be ‘I am what I think is true’.
Rather, it should be ‘I am what I think is important’.
In other words, if you’re going to have a strong sense of identity, it should be grounded in your values, not your beliefs.””
Those are the words of Adam Grant, an American popular science author, professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania - specializing in organizational psychology - and author of numerous best-selling books.
The above concept comes from a discussion about his latest book, “Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Great Things”.
Grant believes that a mistake a lot of people make is that they anchor their identity in their opinons and beliefs, rather than their values.
When you anchor your identity on your beliefs, what you think is true, it holds you back in two ways:
it prevents you from evolving what you think
and it limits how you think
It limits the extent to which you allow yourself the capacity to alter your views and be open to change, which in itself acts as a handbrake on your personal growth.
Let’s first define what we mean by beliefs and values:
Beliefs are specific ideas, opinions, or convictions that individuals hold to be true or false. They are the mental constructs that represent one's understanding of reality. Beliefs can be about various topics, including religion, politics, science, or personal preferences. They can include whether you believe a particular god is real, or whether the earth is round or flat, or how you relate to political ideologies like conservatism vs liberalism, or whether aliens have visited earth previously.
Values are broad, enduring principles or standards that guide a person's judgments and actions. They represent what an individual considers important or desirable and serve as a foundation for making ethical and moral choices, and guide our actions in life. They can include examples like honesty, showing empathy towards others, the role of fairness, family values or environmental conservation.
When it comes to our own identities, and how to think about the role of beliefs and values, let’s consider a tree.
Our beliefs are like the leaves of a tree.
They play a vital role in our lives, specifically in that they are often the visible manifestations of our thoughts and understanding of the world. Leaves may differ from tree to tree, much like individual beliefs vary among people.
But, like leaves, we should treat our beliefs with the reality that our thoughts and understanding of the world can change. Just as seasons come and go, and external factors have larger or lesser influences on how we see the world, there might come a time when certain beliefs need to be shed, or others allowed to grow, as we experience new things.
In reality, this process represents exposing ourself to new information, to new factors that swirl around in the world around us. Just as the changing of the seasons is a way of life, so too should be our willingness to allow our beliefs to be influenced by new information, evidence or experiences.
Our values, however, are like the roots of the tree.
They are foundational and may often be hidden beneath the surface but provide vital stability and nourishment to the entire life of an individual. Values are the hidden principles that guide and sustain a person's ethical and moral decisions and actions. They might not be immediately visible, but they are essential for the overall well-being and character of us as individuals. Without a firm set of values, there is no foundation to form beliefs.
Our values should be enduring, and anchor us. They represent the very core of what we believe to be important in life, and in that way represent the identity of our lives.
Why does the difference between beliefs and values matter?
Our beliefs represent our understanding of the world around us. Beliefs are shaped by new information and experiences. So, as a result, will constantly be challenged and pushed as we encounter new information and experiences.
If we spend our lives trying to fight against this, trying to prevent our leaves from ever falling, or allowing new ones to grow, we are inviting a constant source of unnatural tension into our lives.
Steadfastly holding onto beliefs with no ability to let go is like allowing dead leaves to decay on our branches. It leaves no room for new, fresh ones to grow in their place. And our tree stops growing as a result. We stop evolving and taking on different ways of being as the seasons shift and bend around us.
Halting our ability to grow can create significant challenges for us down in the line by pressing up against our sense of identity.
Adam Grant uses the example of a doctor in the mid-20th century. At the time, many believed that lobotomies, the process of removing parts of someone’s brain, were the most effective treatment in addressing certain psychological disorders. These doctors, presumably, believed they were being helpful to people.
Now if those doctors were incapable of shifting their beliefs when new evidence emerged that this approach was, in fact, not helpful to say the least, then they were going to have a really hard time adjusting to this new state of being. It risked attacking their very identity if they believed, and were unwilling to let go of, the idea that lobotomies must be the way to help people.
However, if a doctor in that situation has a value of “improving the well-being of my patients”, then it allows them to shift and adjust their approach as new evidence emerges. They can more readily understand why they believed lobotomies may have been useful, but then shift to new, better ways of helping their patients.
In the latter case, the doctor doesn’t have to have their own identity challenged, they just need to show a willingness to shed and grow new beliefs.
In this way, the ability to allow our beliefs to shift and change not only allows us to grow, but it breeds resilience within us. It allows us to handle the experience of our beliefs being challenged, without completely unrooting who we are.
We only need to look around at the polarisation of the world around us today on topics such as the COVID vaccine, climate change, Brexit, populism and many other examples to understand the anxiety and very real pain that can be caused when we are unable, or unwilling, to let go of our beliefs.
It is our task in life to understand and create our values. To hold these firm and root ourselves in them, while holding our beliefs loosely.
So, to end, a question for you:
What beliefs do you have that might be too strongly held?
What are the values that are rooted you to the ground?
For more on how to address these questions, I recommend a longer read here.