Your values are
the things that you believe are important in the way you live and work.
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
Women who jotted down their values (from
religion to relationships to politics) then wrote about the one that was most
important to them lost more weight, and had smaller waist circumferences and
lower BMIs four months later than women who were also trying to downsize but
didn't spend time focusing on their values. Thinking about what matters to us
may help us feel more in control of our habits and better about ourselves
overall, making it less likely that we'll reach for food when we need an
emotional pick-me-up.
Defining Your
Values
When you define
your personal 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 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.)
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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.
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.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:
First, clarify
your core beliefs and your unifying principles. Write them down and compare
your life today with the values that are really important to you. How are you
doing?
Second, organize
your values in order of their importance to you. Which of your values is most
important? Which is second? And so on. Do your current choices reflect this
order of values?
Test your values by looking at
the decisions they produce. This test will work in either real or imagined decision-making situations.
Say you value independence, and you're considering moving in with your
significant other. What sorts of options are available to you, given your
value? If you value rest and spontaneity, but you work a job that requires
70-hour weeks, how will you avoid stress and internal conflict? In these types
of situations, understanding your values can really help make creative
decisions that reflect your own self-care.
Be aware that you will be able to see your value
in action most powerfully while making a real decision. Sometimes we are so
enamored with a particular value that we imagine it will always lead us to the
best decisions when this is not necessarily the case.
