Identifying Personal Core Values

Identifying Personal Core Values

What Are Your Core Values?

Your core values are principles or a belief that is of critical importance to your life. You need to identify them because when you acknowledge them they can guide you. Adhering to these core values will dictate the way you behave in every aspect of your life. Not defining them will in the long term have an adverse effect on your life. Defining them in this way is defining the positive aspects of core values

Examples of core values are things such as

Calmness
Loyalty
Peace
Trustworthiness

Of course, some core values can be detrimental. When you define your negative core values, you can change them. Examples of negative core values are only the strong will survive. You may believe that you are powerless to change your circumstances. Because of your upbringing, you may think that you don’t deserve good things in life. You may believe that people are grasping or untrustworthy. You may even think that your life is worthless.

Negative belief systems are no more permanent than positive belief systems. By becoming aware of the ideas in your head that become thoughts, you can change the way you think.

In conclusion, our core values highlight what is important to us and what we stand for. It is essential that we isolate and stand by these principles. When we don’t, we find ourselves overwhelmed in many different ways. Some people will display neurotic or compulsive behaviors. They are driven to do things all the time whether it be work or play. They are addicted to many things, food, drink, social media, their cell phone etcetera

Many people fear that if they stop they will have to think about and examine where they are in their lives. When you don’t identify your core beliefs, you coast through life and flounder rather than flourish. A diminished self worth is not uncommon.

Are Core Values Different From Society’s Values?

Yes, they are very different. Society’s values are defined by what is beneficial to your culture rather than helpful to you as an individual person. For instance, cultural values may include power, money or success.

While these things may be necessary to you, they don’t define who you really are. Chasing external power will prevent you from growing as an individual. Your individual core values will allow you to improve and achieve anything that you want.

Power in society’s terms comes from external forces such as being a local councilor, being a judge or any other paid or unpaid position that theoretically gives you status.

You cannot find your core values in anything that society teaches you. Neither St George nor the Dragon holds the key. The answer is within yourself. Only you can find it!

By the time you have defined your core values, you will not have reached the end of your journey. Hopefully, the process will have changed you. You will enter uncharted territory. It will, however, be your territory. This is your story and no one else’s.

How to Define Your Core Values

Look at the list of core values below. They are under headings. The more deeply you think about what these words mean to you, the better it will be. This exercise aims to isolate the three values that you want to live by.

Acceptance
Accomplishment
Accountability
Accuracy
Achievement
Adaptability
Altruism
Ambition
Assertiveness
Attentive
Awareness

Balance
Beauty
Boldness
Bravery
Brilliance

Calmness
Candor
Capable
Careful
Celebration
Certainty
Challenge
Charity
Cleanliness
Cleverness
Comfort
Commitment
Common sense
Community
Compassion
Competence
Concentration
Confidence
Connection
Consciousness
Consistency
Contentment
Contribution
Control
Conviction
Cooperation
Courage
Courtesy
Creation
Creativity
Credibility
Curiosity

Decisiveness
Dedication
Delight
Dependability
Determination
Development
Devotion
Dignity
Discipline
Discovery
Drive

Efficiency
Empathy
Emotion
Emotional Intelligence
Empowerment
Endurance
Enjoyment
Enthusiasm
Equality
Ethical
Excellence
Excitement
Experience
Expressive

Fairness
Family
Fearless
Feelings
Ferocious
Fidelity
Focus
Foresight
Fortitude
Freedom
Friendship
Fun

Generosity
Genuineness
Giving
Grace
Gratitude
Greatness
Growth

Happiness
Hard work
Harmony
Health
Honesty
Honor
Hope
Humility

Imagination
Improvement
Independence
Individuality
Innovation
Inquisitive
Insightful
Inspiring
Integrity
Intelligence
Intensity
Intuitive

Joy
Jubilance
Justice

Kindness
Knowledge

Lawfulness
Leadership
Learning
Liberty
Logic
Love
Loyalty

Maturity
Meaning
Moderation
Money
Motivation

Notoriety

Open Mindedness
Optimism
Order
Organization
Originality

Passion
Patience
Peace
Peacefulness
Performance
Persistence
Playfulness
Poise
Potential
Power
Productivity
Professionalism
Prosperity
Purpose

Realism
Realistic
Reason
Recognition
Reflective
Reliability
Respect
Responsibility
Restraint
Reverence
Rigor
Risk
Risk Taking

Satisfaction
Security
Self-reliance
Selflessness
Sensitivity
Serendipity
Serenity
Service
Sharing
Significance
Silence
Simplicity
Sincerity
Skillfulness
Smartness
Solitude
Spirit
Spirituality
Spontaneous
Stability
Status
Stewardship
Strength
Structure
Success
Support
Surprise
Sustainability

Talent
Teamwork
Temperance
Thankfulness
Thoroughness
Thoughtfulness
Timelessness
Timeliness
Tolerance
Toughness
Traditional
Tranquility
Transparency
Trust
Trustworthy
Truth

Understanding
Uniqueness
Unity

Valor
Victory
Vigor
Vitality

Wealth
Welcoming
Winning
Wisdom
Wonder

Zealousness

These are not values that you would like to live by, and they are values that are fundamental to your very existence. It is crucial that you choose the correct values because these are the values you will live by. You will struggle and find it difficult if they really are not your beliefs.

The first step to defining personal core values. It goes without saying that these words are merely a guideline. You are entirely at liberty to reduce them or add to them or change them. Don’t forget they are your personal core values and they must resonate with you, not with anyone else.

Write down a minimum of 10 of these words and a maximum of 20. Next, to it write down how important they are to you. Write it down on a scale of 1 to 10. The number one is the least important and the number 10 is the most important.

In the third column write down how difficult you will find it to live by these words. Again writing a one will mean it will be relatively easy, but 10 means living by this value could be difficult.

In the fourth column write down how much you practice this trait every day as a matter of course.

Tomorrow we will talk about refining this list down to a shorter list of five and then to a core list of three.