Individualities values

What Are Your Values and how do you value yourself as an individual?

Deciding What's Most Important in Life

How would you define your
values?
Before you answer this question,
you need to know what, in
general, values are.
Your values are the things that
you believe are important in the
way you live and work.
They (should) determine your
priorities, and, deep down,
they're probably the measures
you use to tell if your life is turning out the way you
want it to.
When the things that you do and the way you
behave match your values, life is usually good –
you're satisfied and content. But when these don't
align with your values, that's when things feel...
wrong. This can be a real source of unhappiness.
This is why making a conscious effort to identify
your values is so important.
How Values Help You
Values exist, whether you recognize them or not.
Life can be much easier when you acknowledge
your values – and when you make plans and
decisions that honor them.
If you value family, but you have to work 70-hour
weeks in your job, will you feel internal stress and
conflict? And if you don't value competition, and you
work in a highly competitive sales environment, are
you likely to be satisfied with your job?
In these types of situations, understanding your
values can really help. When you know your own
values, you can use them to make decisions about
how to live your life, and you can answer questions
like these:
What job should I pursue?
Should I accept this promotion?
Should I start my own business?
Should I compromise, or be firm with my position?
Should I follow tradition, or travel down a new path?
So, take the time to understand the real priorities in
your life, and you'll be able to determine the best
direction for you and your life goals !

Tip:

Values are usually fairly stable, yet they don't have
strict limits or boundaries. Also, as you move
through life, your values may change. For example,
when you start your career, success – measured
by money and status – might be a top priority. But
after you have a family, work-life balance may be
what you value more.
As your definition of success changes, so do your
values. This is why keeping in touch with your
values is a lifelong exercise. You should
continuously revisit this, especially if you start to
feel unbalanced... and you can't quite figure out
why.
As you go through the exercise below, bear in mind
that values that were important in the past may not
be relevant now.
Defining Your Values
When you define your values, you discover what's
truly important to you. A good way of starting to do
this is to look back on your life – to identify when
you felt really good, and really confident that you
were making good choices.

Step 1: Identify the times when you were happiest
Find examples from both your career and personal
life. This will ensure some balance in your answers.
What were you doing?
Were you with other people? Who?
What other factors contributed to your happiness?

Step 2: Identify the times when you were most
proud
Use examples from your career and personal life.
Why were you proud?
Did other people share your pride? Who?
What other factors contributed to your feelings of
pride?

Step 3: Identify the times when you were most
fulfilled and satisfied
Again, use both work and personal examples.
What need or desire was fulfilled?
How and why did the experience give your life
meaning?
What other factors contributed to your feelings of
fulfillment?

Step 4: Determine your top values, based on your
experiences of happiness, pride, and fulfillment
Why is each experience truly important and
memorable? Use the following list of common
personal values to help you get started – and aim
for about 9 to 10 top values. (As you work through, you
may find that some of these naturally combine. For
instance, if you value philanthropy, community, and
generosity, you might say that service to others is
one of your top values.)

Accountability
Accuracy
Achievement
Adventurousness
Altruism
Ambition
Assertiveness
Balance
Being the best
Belonging
Boldness
Calmness
Carefulness
Challenge
Cheerfulness
Clear-mindedness
Commitment
Community
Compassion
Competitiveness
Consistency
Contentment
Continuous Improvement
Contribution
Control
Cooperation
Correctness
Courtesy
Creativity
Curiosity
Decisiveness
Democraticness
Dependability
Determination
Devoutness
Diligence
Discipline
Discretion
Diversity
Dynamism
Economy
Effectiveness
Efficiency
Elegance
Empathy
Enjoyment
Enthusiasm
Equality
Excellence
Excitement
Expertise
Exploration
Expressiveness
Fairness
Faith
Family-orientedness
Fidelity
Fitness
Fluency
Focus
Freedom
Fun
Generosity
Goodness
Grace
Growth
Happiness
Hard Work
Health
Helping Society
Holiness
Honesty
Honor
Humility
Independence
Ingenuity
Inner Harmony
Inquisitiveness
Insightfulness
Intelligence
Intellectual Status
Intuition
Joy
Justice
Leadership
Legacy
Love
Loyalty
Making a difference
Mastery
Merit
Obedience
Openness
Order
Originality
Patriotism
Perfection
Piety
Positivity
Practicality
Preparedness
Professionalism
Prudence
Quality-orientation
Reliability
Resourcefulness
Restraint
Results-oriented
Rigor
Security
Self-actualization
Self-control
Selflessness
Self-reliance
Sensitivity
Serenity
Service
Shrewdness
Simplicity
Soundness
Speed
Spontaneity
Stability
Strategic
Strength
Structure
Success
Support
Teamwork
Temperance
Thankfulness
Thoroughness
Thoughtfulness
Timeliness
Tolerance
Traditionalism
Trustworthiness
Truth-seeking
Understanding
Uniqueness
Unity
Usefulness
Vision
Vitality

Step 5: Prioritize your top values
This step is probably the most difficult, because
you'll have to look deep inside yourself. It's also the
most important step, because, when making a
decision, you'll have to choose between solutions
that may satisfy different values. This is when you
must know which value is more important to you.
Write down your top values, not in any particular
order.
Look at the first two values and ask yourself, "If I
could satisfy only one of these, which would I
choose?" It might help to visualize a situation in
which you would have to make that choice. For
example, if you compare the values of service and
stability, imagine that you must decide whether to
sell your house and move to another country to do
valuable foreign aid work, or keep your house and
volunteer to do charity work closer to home.
Keep working through the list, by comparing each
value with each other value, until your list is in the
correct order.

Tip:

If you have a tough time doing this, consider using
Paired Comparison Analysis to help you. With this
method, you decide which of two options is most
important, and then assign a score to show how
much more important it is. Since it's so important to
identify and prioritize your values, investing your
time in this step is definitely worth it.
Step 6: Reaffirm your values
Check your top-priority values, and make sure they
fit with your life and your vision for yourself.
Do these values make you feel good about
yourself?
Are you proud of your top three values?
Would you be comfortable and proud to tell your
values to people you respect and admire?
Do these values represent things you would
support, even if your choice isn't popular, and it
puts you in the minority?
When you consider your values in decision making,
you can be sure to keep your sense of integrity and
what you know is right, and approach decisions
with confidence and clarity. You'll also know that
what you're doing is best for your current and
future happiness and satisfaction.
Making value-based choices may not always be
easy. However, making a choice that you know is
right is a lot less difficult in the long run.
Key Points
Identifying and understanding your values is a
challenging and important exercise. Your values are
a central part of who you are – and who you want
to be. By becoming more aware of these important
factors in your life, you can use them as a guide to
make the best choice in any situation.
Some of life's decisions are really about
determining what you value most. When many
options seem reasonable, it's helpful and
comforting to rely on your values – and use them
as a strong guiding force to point you in the right
direction.