What We Value

With so many competing priorities pulling us in different directions every day-family, friends, work, our health-it can feel difficult to make decisions that are aligned with what we care about most. Especially in the moment, we often default to the immediate demand, the path of least resistance, the worn old habit we wanted to change. In What We Value, pioneering scholar Emily Falk reveals how we can transform our relationship with the daily decisions that define our lives-opening pathways to make more purposeful, fulfilling choices; more successfully change our behavior; and influence others to see differently-by thinking like neuroscientists. Drawing on her own award-winning research, Falk introduces readers to a new paradigm for understanding why we, and those around us, do what we do. This is the value calculation: the often-subconscious mechanism by which the brain computes our everyday choices. By learning how it works, Falk shows, we can learn to