What Are My Values?
This question sometimes causes people unnecessary stress because they aren’t sure how to answer it. However, there are some easy ways to figure out what you value and what your core values (these are values that will likely never change — or change only slightly — because they are so important to you.)
You are already on your way to knowing what your values are because you have started thinking about what you want — which are things you value. You’ve got to love doing something once and getting twice the results!
As you can see in <<– this image, your values can be based on many different parts of your life. You might value things that aren’t even in this image.
Here is a list of Core Values that can be used to identify your values. Personally, I don’t like just using the value words on their own because sometimes you might think that you value something and the reality is you don’t really value it enough to put it into a sentence that you can live with.
For example, if I say that I value “truthfulness”, then that’s great but really doesn’t have a lot of emotional connection. However, if I say that I value truthfulness because it really hurts when people lie to me and I know that people distrust me when I lie to them. That makes a lot more sense.
By putting your values into sentences you have more to hold onto. Also, if you start to write the sentence saying that you value truthfulness because it annoys you when people lie to you but you aren’t willing to be truthful yourself, then you know that this isn’t really a value after all. Hopefully, this makes sense.
So, use this Core Values list and
- Highlight the values that you agree with.
- Write a sentence that explains why you agree with this.
- Check-in with yourself to see if you can live this value too (or if you just want other people to live it)
- Score out the values that aren’t really resonating/meaningful to you
- Try to get a list of 10 – 15 really strong values
- Then narrow those values down to around 5 values that you know you can live with every single day
- What careers permit you to stay true to your values?