Do You Know What Your Values Are?

You might not give much of a thought when it comes to living by your personal values. However, your values are the things that matter to you in life. When your behaviour and actions match your values, you are living a content life. Things start to go wrong only when your actions don’t match with your values. It is first and foremost necessary to make a conscious effort to identify your values.

Values are formed in early childhood and operate almost always in the background. Even though it influences all the actions that you take in life, it works unconsciously. Your values reveal your likes and dislikes and work as preferences in life. Though they are formed early on in life, it can be consciously re-evaluated and changed even at a later stage. It is possible to figure out which of the two values we have is more important than the other.

Why do I need values – How does it help?

Your personal values work in two ways. While helping you build your identity, values also guide you in a certain direction. It helps you balance your life and make smart decisions. Even understanding the negative values you have imbibed helps, as it enables you to create better decisions, leading to better results.

While making a crucial decision in life, check to see if the decisions you take are in alignment with your core values. See if any of the direction you take in life will want you to compromise on your values, thereby destroying the subtle balance.

Values exist even without your knowledge, and acknowledging them makes things easier. You will then be directed towards honouring those values while making critical decisions.

Take these examples, for instance:

You value your family: Is spending quality time with your family important enough? If yes, you will most likely dislike a job that demands you to work 12-15 hours a day. You will be emotionally stressed and will most likely hate your job.

You do not value competition: If you do not value competition and have to work in a fiercely aggressive work environment, you will be upset.

Understanding your core values helps in these instances. You will be guided to make a conscious effort and pick jobs that are aligned to your values.

Make sure you ask yourself questions such as

• What kind of job do I want?
• Should I accept a bribe?
• Do I need to be honest about this and tell them the truth?
• Do I start my venture that I have been planning for so long?
• Should I be conventional in my approach or try something different?

By understanding your priorities, you will have a clear perspective of your goals in life.

Defining personal values

Decide for yourself what matters most to you and keep at it. What we are hinting at here are the characteristics that make you the way you are.

If you value honesty, you will tell the truth irrespective of the consequences. People who value speaking the truth would be disappointed with themselves if they had to lie at some point.

Pay attention to the negative and positive emotions that occur when you make a certain decision. These emotions guide you to your values.

A few of the questions you can ask yourself to help define your personal values include

1. What do I expect from an ideal job?
2. What is it that I give utmost importance to in life?
3. What makes me proud?
4. What characteristic in people or myself makes me upset?
5. What changes do I want to bring about in myself and the people around me?

Take some time out and write the answers to these questions. You can use them as a reference point to figuring out your personal values.

You will need to delve deeper into your answers to truly understand what matters to you most. If you value success but also value spending more time with family, you might want to assess what is more important of the two.

Personal values – A list to pick from

There can be more than 100 values that you consciously or subconsciously lay down for yourself.

Here are 20 of them that can help you define your personal values:

1. Family
2. Friendship
3. Honesty
4. Security
5. Integrity
6. Freedom
7. Wealth
8. Success
9. Simplicity
10. Endurance
11. Openness
12. Professionalism
13. Quality
14. Spiritualism
15. Respect
16. Generosity
17. Forgiveness
18. Peace
19. Contentment
20. Enjoyment

As you read this list, you might think of 100 more values that are important to you. Go ahead and list them down. If you think the list is exhaustive and unmanageable, cut them down to 15 or 20.

You might want to assign scores to each of the values. That will help you pick the ones that you deem most important.

You will find that many a time, one of your values clashes with another one that you deem equally important. You will then have the difficult work of picking up the one that matters most to you. If you value wealth, and you also value contentment, where would you draw the line? What you do next will depend entirely on what you value the most.

Listed below are things you could do to create a list of meaningful core values that will help you in all aspects of your life.

• Start from scratch

It is easy to presume that you know your values already and hence never try discovering yourself. If you start from scratch, with no prior assumptions, your mind is open to receiving some inner truths that you might have been oblivious of.

Make sure you have no prior assumptions and create space for new insights. Your conscious mind might not have all the answers you are seeking.

• Create your personal list of values

You can seek help from the internet to find more than 400 values you can pick from. Values are something that we discover during our life. It is not advisable to create a predetermined list.

However, if you are uncomfortable handling values, it is a good idea to scan through the list of values available online and pick a few of them.

You can uncover your personal core values through three simple processes:

1) Look out for experiences that gave you a ‘high’

Can you think of a time when you felt ‘high’ about yourself? Think about all that you thought when it happened to you. Think about the one or more values you were honouring right then.

2) Consider a moment of frustration

The next step is to think about a moment in your life when you were frustrated and angry with what was happening. Why were you upset and disappointed? What was the value that was compromised?

3) Essence of life and fulfilment

What is it that you want in life apart from basic human needs to live a life of contentment? What does self-expression mean to you? How important is wealth to you? What are the values you will not give up at any cost?

Categorise your values into groups

You probably now have a list of 20 or 40 personal values. You can now begin to group them up into related topics.

Values like responsibility and answerability are related. Similarly, values like learning and self-growth are linked. Ask yourself the essence of your multiple values as you do not have to list them down separately. They can be grouped under one core value.

Figure out your core values

Once you have listed down a significant number of values, ask yourself a few pertinent questions to help you shrink your list even further.

• What are the crucial values you hold on to in life?
• Which are the values that dominate your way of living?
• Which are the values that support your inner beliefs and make up your conscience?

Holding on to your values is crucial for people who are unique with strengths and weaknesses.

It is difficult to give you a number in terms of how many values you need to have. If you have too little, you might not be able to capture all the dimensions of your ‘self.’ If, on the other hand, you have too many, you might not be able to take advantage of them and forget quickly.

While the list of core values will be different for each individual, the ‘healthy’ range would be between five and ten. List them down in the order of significance.

Do not forget to review your list

Once you have listed all your personal values that you will stick to, keep it aside. Look back the next day or even a few days later. See if you want to make any changes, or you are fine with the final list.

Once you’ve finalized your list of core values, walk away from them, and revisit them the next day after a good night’s sleep. Review your list by asking some pertinent questions:

• How does the new list make you feel?
• Are they aligned with your goals and objectives?
• Are those values consistent with your identity and who you are?
• Are those values listed in order of their importance?
• Do you feel like your values are in the proper order of importance?

You are always welcome to make required changes to your list as and when necessary.

Use your values to set goals

Do the choices that you make in your career reflect your values? Are your career choices and values in alignment with your other values like giving importance to your family?

It is natural for us to shift focus from our values for a number of reasons. But it is important to get back to it.

Next to each of the values you have listed, write all the things you could do to ensure that you live by your values.

Once that is done, you must divide them into goals for the coming week, month, or year. If you already have existing values, re-look to see if it is aligned with your new set of goals. Remove them if it is not necessary.

Conclusion: Understand your values and yourself

‘Values’ play a crucial role in determining the person you are. The other elements include the strength of mind, life goals, temperament, and interests, among others. Knowing your values is crucial as it helps build your character.