Make Your Life Easier By Knowing Your Core Values

Whether we recognize them or not – values exist! We can make life much easier for ourselves by acknowledging our values and by making plans and decisions that honour them. This will also help you understand yourself and it will guide you with any decision you make in the future.

If you value family, but your job requires you to work a 60 hour week, will this cause you conflict and stress? Or perhaps you work in a competitive sales environment but you don’t value competition, are you likely to have high job satisfaction?

It’s in situations like these that understanding our values can really help. When we have a good understanding of our values, we can use them to make important life decisions and answer questions such as:

Should I leave my job? Should I accept this job promotion?

Should I compromise my standards? Should I start my own business?

Should I follow tradition, or take a new path in life?

Taking time to understand the real priorities in your live will enable you to determine the best direction to take and help you work towards achieving your life goals.

WHAT ARE YOUR CORE VALUES?

Defining Your Values:

Defining your personal values will help you to discover what’s truly important to you. The best way to start doing this is to reflect on your life and identify times when you felt really positive and confident that you were making good choices.

Step 1: Identify times in your life when you were at your happiest, give examples from your personal life and your career (this will ensure some balance in your answers).

1. What were you doing?

2. Were you with other people? Who?

3. What other factors contributed to your happiness?

Step 2: Identify times in your life when you were most proud, give examples from your personal life and your career.

1. Why were you proud?

2. Did other people share your pride? Who?

3. What other factors contributed to this feeling of pride?

Step 3: Identify times in your life when you felt most fulfilled and satisfied. Again, use both personal and work examples.

1. What need or desire was fulfilled?

2. How did this experience give your life meaning?

3. What other factors contributed to this fulfillment?

Step 4: Determine your most important values, based on your experiences of inner peace. Consider why each experience is so memorable and important?

Use the list of common personal values to help you get started – aim for approximately 10 top values.

(As you work through this exercise, you may find that some of these values naturally combine. For example, if you value generosity, philanthropy, and community, you could say that serving others is one of your top values.)

 

DEFINING YOUR PERSONAL VALUES:

Authenticity, Accountability, Accuracy, Achievement, Adventurousness, Authenticity, Ambition, Assertiveness….

Balance, Belonging, Boldness…

Calmness, Carefulness, Certainty, Challenge, Change, Clear-Mindedness, Commitment, Community, Compassion, Connection, Consistency, Contentment, Contribution, Creativity….

Decisiveness, Dependability….

Determination, Devoutness, Diligence, Discipline, Discretion, Diversity…

Effectiveness, Efficiency, Empathy, Enthusiasm, Equality, Excellence, Excitement, Exploration, Expressiveness…

Fairness, Faith, Freedom, Fulfillment…

Generosity, Giving, Goodness, Growth…

Hard Work, Honesty, Hope, Humility..

Independence,  Ingenuity, Identity…

Justice

Leadership, Legacy, Love, Loyalty…

Obedience, Openness

Peace, Practicality, Purpose, Professionalism, Progress

Reliability, Resourcefulness, Relationships, Risk

Security, Self Actualization, Self-control, Self Improvement, Sharing, Significance, Selflessness, Self-Worth

Spontaneity, Stability

Teamwork, Temperance, Thoroughness, Timeliness, Tolerance, Traditionalism, Trustworthiness, Truth

Uncertainty, Understanding, Uniqueness, Unity

Variety, Vision, Vitality…

 

STEP 5: Prioritise your ‘top’ values

This step is usually the most challenging as you’ll have to look deep within yourself. However, it’s also the most important step, because, when you’re faced with a decision, you may have to choose between solutions that will satisfy different values.

This is when it’s crucial to know which value is more important to you. Without worrying about the order, make a list of your top 10 values.

Look at the first two values on the list and ask yourself, ‘If I could only satisfy one of these, which one would I choose?’

Work your way through the list, comparing each value with each of the other values until you’ve got your list in the correct order for you.

 

STEP 6: Reaffirm your values – Check your top-priority values, and make sure they fit with your life and your vision for yourself.

1. Do these values you’ve chosen make you feel good about yourself?

2. Are you proud of your top three values?

3. Would you be comfortable to tell people you respect about your values?

4. Do these values represent things you would support, even if your choice weren’t popular, and it puts you in the minority?

When you take into consideration your values in decision making, you can be certain to keep a sense of integrity and what you know is right, while being able to approach decisions with confidence and clarity.

You’ll also know that what you’re currently doing is motivated by the progress that you want to make in life. It’s not always easy to make value-based choices, but it will more than likely make life much easier in the long run.

Identifying and taking the time to understand your values is an important and challenging exercise. Your personal values are central to who you are – and who you want to become.

 

I would love to hear from you. Did you discover something new about yourself today? Leave a comment and let me know.