Values-Based Decision-Making
Every decision we make is either a conscious or unconscious attempt to satisfy our needs.
Over time, humans have developed six ways of making decisions—instincts, subconscious beliefs, conscious beliefs, values, intuition, and inspiration. Nowadays, it is normal for human beings to grow up with the ability to utilize the first three modes of decision-making. From an evolutionary perspective, values-based decision-making, intuition-based decision-making, and inspiration are still relatively new, but are increasingly being used as more and more people evolve to higher levels of consciousness.
The reasons why values-based decision-making is so important at this time in our human history are three-fold:
Values-based decision-making is necessary for individuation and self-actualization. Values allow us to transcend the belief structures of our parental and cultural conditioning, so we can become more fully who we are, and live a more authentic life.
Values-based decision-making is necessary for the institutionalization and development of democracy around the world. Values allow us to transcend our ethnic/cultural belief structures by uniting us around shared basic human principles. In human group cultures, values unite and beliefs separate.
Values-based decision-making allows us to throw away our rule books. When a group of people espouse an agreed set of values and understand which behaviors support those values, then you no longer need to rely on bureaucratic procedures setting out what people should or should not do in specific situations. All the rules reduce to one—live the values. People can work out for themselves what they need to do, and in so doing become responsible and accountable for their behaviors.
