Discover the importance of identifying personal values to make informed decisions and lead a fulfilling life. Learn how aligning actions with core values can enhance happiness and satisfaction.
By Brad Nakase, Attorney
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You must first understand what values generally mean before you can respond to this topic.
Your beliefs about what matters to you in life and at your job/business are your values definition.
They (should) establish what’s important to you and, in all honesty, they’re likely the yardsticks by which you judge whether or not your life is going in the direction you had hoped.
A happy and contented existence is typically experienced when one’s actions and behavior align with their values. But something feels off when they don’t line up with your own principles. This might truly be a cause for sadness.
Because of this, it’s critical to consciously consider what your values definition is. That being said, we will examine how to determine your own values in this piece and the clip that follows.
Whether you admit it or not, values are real. Acknowledging your values definition while creating decisions and actions that reflect them can make life much easier.
Will you experience conflict and internal tension if you regard your family yet your profession requires you to put in 70-hour weeks? If you are employed in an extremely competitive sales atmosphere and disregard the competition, how likely are you to be content with your work?
Knowing your values definition will be a huge assistance in these kinds of circumstances. Knowing your personal values will help you make judgments on how to spend your life and provide answers to problems such as these:
So, invest some time in learning what your true priorities are, and you’ll then be prepared to decide what you want in life and what’s most important for you.
Tip
Although values lack rigid bounds or limits, they are typically quite stable. Furthermore, your values could evolve as you go through life.
When you first start your profession, for instance, achieving success as defined by status and money may be your main concern.
However, balancing work and life could become more important to you after having children.
Your own values definition will evolve along with your idea of success. Keeping your values in check is a continuous endeavor because of this. If you begin to feel off-balance and you’re not sure why, you should go back to this often.
Remember that values that were significant in the past might not be relevant today when you do the following activity.
What’s genuinely essential to you is shown when you identify your personal values. To begin with, it’s a good idea to reflect on your past and pinpoint those moments in your life when you were most content and assured of your decision-making.
Step 1: Determine your happiest moments
Look through your personal and professional experiences for examples. Ensuring equilibrium in your responses will be ensured by this.
Step 2: Determine the moments you felt most proud of yourself
Include personal and professional examples.
Step 3: Determine your most contented and fulfilled moments
Once more, include examples from your work and life.
Step 4: Taking into account your feelings of contentment, satisfaction, and pride, identify your core values
Why is every encounter so meaningful and noteworthy? For the purpose of getting started, consider the list of prevalent personal values below; try to narrow your list down to around ten core values. (You could discover that several of these merge organically as you go along. Serving others could rank as among your core values, for example, if you cherish giving, community, and charity.)
Typical Core Personal Values
Accuracy
Accountability
Achievement
Altruism
Adventurousness
Assertiveness
Ambition
Balance
Belonging
Being the best
Boldness
Carefulness
Calmness
Challenge
Clear-mindedness
Cheerfulness
Community
Commitment
Competitiveness
Compassion
Contentment
Consistency
Continuous Improvement
Control
Contribution
Correctness
Cooperation
Creativity
Courtesy
Curiosity
Democratic-ness
Decisiveness
Determination
Dependability
Diligence
Devoutness
Discipline
Diversity
Discretion
Dynamism
Effectiveness
Economy
Elegance
Efficiency
Enjoyment
Empathy
Enthusiasm
Excellence
Equality
Expertise
Excitement
Expressiveness
Exploration
Faith
Fairness
Family-oriented-ness
Fitness
Fidelity
Focus
Fluency
Fun
Freedom
Generosity
Grace
Growth
Goodness
Happiness
Health
Hard work
Holiness
Helping society
Honor
Honesty
Humility
Ingenuity
Independence
Inquisitiveness
Inner harmony
Intelligence
Insightfulness
Intuition
Intellectual status
Justice
Joy
Legacy
Leadership
Loyalty
Love
Making a difference
Merit
Mastery
Obedience
Order
Openness
Originality
Perfection
Patriotism
Positivity
Piety
Preparedness
Practicality
Prudence
Professionalism
Quality-orientation
Resourcefulness
Reliability
Restraint
Rigor
Results-oriented
Security
Self-control
Self-actualization
Self-reliance
Selflessness
Serenity
Sensitivity
Service
Simplicity
Shrewdness
Speed
Soundness
Stability
Spontaneity
Strength
Structure
Strategic
Support
Success
Temperance
Teamwork
Thoroughness
Thankfulness
Timeliness
Thoughtfulness
Traditionalism
Tolerance
Truth-seeking
Trustworthiness
Understanding
Unity
Uniqueness
Usefulness
Vitality
Vision
Step 5: Set your highest priorities
Since you’ll need to examine yourself deeply, this step is most likely the hardest. This is the most crucial phase as well because you will have to select between options that may meet conflicting values as you make a selection. You need to be aware of which value seems more significant to you at this point.
Tip
If you’re having trouble with this, you might want to think about doing a Paired Comparison Analysis. Using this strategy, you rank the two options according to importance, giving the more important option a higher score. Devoting time to this phase is well worth it, as determining and prioritizing your values is crucial.
Step 6: Reiterate your values
Verify that your highest priorities align with your daily goals and self-image.
Keeping your moral compass and doing what you believe to be fair at all times can ensure that you act with clarity and confidence when you take your principles into account. What’s best for your happiness and fulfillment now and in the future will also be evident to you.
Choosing decisions based on values isn’t always simple. Ultimately, though, it’s far easier to make the decision you know is correct.
By succinctly outlining on paper what your values mean to you, you may give them life. Embed their significance by putting into words what they represent and how they are important to you.
To ensure that you truly understand the values, keep them brief and express them in your own unique terms. When it’s time to make decisions, these values definition will serve as helpful reminders of what you are along with what is important to you.
Saying, “I respect creativity as it allows me to find solutions to issues and develop new, inventive concepts that bring me pleasure and an overwhelming feeling of fulfillment,” is an example of how you may articulate one of your fundamental values definition.
1. Values Definition: What Do They Mean?
What you consider to be essential ideas and beliefs for your daily life and professional endeavors are your values.
Your decisions, priorities, and behavior toward others should all be guided by them. Things normally work out well in life when your actions and behavior are consistent with your values definition.
2. What Makes Personal Values Crucial?
Being aware of your values definition will truly enhance your quality of life and ease your burdens.
This occurs as a result of using your values in reaching well-informed judgments regarding how you lead your life once you recognize them and make objectives and choices that are consistent with them.
Realizing what matters most in your existence will help you set meaningful goals and decide which path is best for you.
A difficult but necessary activity is figuring out what your values are. Part of what you are and what you want to become is fundamentally shaped by your unique values. You may utilize these crucial aspects of your life like an outline to choose wisely in every circumstance if you increase your awareness of them.
Making choices in life sometimes comes down to figuring out what matters most to you. It can be consoling and beneficial to cling to what you believe in at times when a lot of options appear sensible. You can use your values definition as a powerful compass to steer yourself down the right route.
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