Value-based litmus tests

If you assess the quality of what you wear by how it was made, or how it looks, or how it feels, it makes sense to use these features to gauge what clothes to buy and what not to.

Similarly, if you value quality and selection (as opposed to mission or price or proximity)…it makes sense (for you) to drive out of your way to get your groceries (and to pay a premium for them) at Whole Foods instead of shopping at your local mini-mart.

What’s interesting is that we don’t often use these same rules for assessing the value of things in other areas of our lives, like who we do business with or where we spend our time.

For example: if you value your bank’s over-the-phone customer service over how many savings plans they offer (or the APY those plans will give you), why not call the customer-service hotline of every bank in your town, and use those interactions to determine where to stash your money? If you end up waiting for a representative for more than 10 minutes for most of them (you will), it will be pretty clear which bank to choose.

Or consider something as simple as where you get your morning coffee. If the line at Starbucks takes too long (and you happen to value your time above nothing else) why not go to the far less popular third-wave joint down the street?

We lose nothing by changing our minds, or our habits. By evaluating our choices based on our values—rather than those we’ve been trained to pursue—we can learn to make choices that more aligned with what we know will make us most happy and less with those we know that won’t.