Have You Defined Your Values Lately?

Can your friends identify your values?

By making a list of those things in your life that you value the most and that are important to you, then you will better understand what makes you so unique and how to use those traits to your advantage.

The five-point checklist for defining your values

Here is a five-point check list that will help you get started.

1. Happiness. Make a list that identifies those times when you felt the most happy, upbeat, and positive (times when your self-esteem was super high). Were you alone or with someone when you felt this way? Do you remember what you were doing? Write it down. Can you think of one more experience that made you so happy?

2. Pride. Looking back at your career and your personal life, name those times when you felt truly proud of yourself or your accomplishments. Describe why you felt proud of yourself, and if that moment was also shared with other people.

3. Fulfillment. Do you believe that you have felt fulfilled throughout most of your life? Choose your personal life experiences or work experiences that made you feel totally fulfilled. Did you have a specific need or desire that was fulfilled through that event? What was it about feeling fulfilled that gave greater meaning to your life?

4. To help you figure out your top ten values, look at what you’ve written down for happiness, pride, and fulfillment. Which of those experiences created a memorable moment for you?

Listed below are some of the most common personal values that men and women have defined as being in their top 10 list.

Accountable, Accurate, Achievement, Adventurousness, Ambition, Assertive

Balance, Being the best, Belonging, Boldness

Calmness, Careful, Challenge, Cheerful, Clear-minded, Commitment, Community, Compassion, Competitive, Consistent, Contentment, Continuous Improvement, Contribution, Control, Cooperation, Correctness, Courtesy, Creativity, Curiosity

Decisiveness, Dependable, Determined, Devoutness, Diligence, Discipline, Discretion, Diversity

Economy, Effective, Efficiency, Elegance, Empathy, Enjoyment, Enthusiasm, Equality, Excellence, Excitement, Expertise, Exploration, Expressiveness

Fairness

Faith

Family-oriented

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

Irreverence

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

Thorough

Thoughtful

Timeliness

Tolerance

Traditional

Trustworthy

Truth-seeking

Understanding

Uniqueness

Unity

Usefulness

Vision

Vitality

5. In no particular order, write down on a sheet of paper the top 10 values that are most important to you. Now, look at the completed list and assign a rating to each one. In other words, what is the number one value in your life? What do you value as second? What value would you assign to position number three in your list?

It’s important to prioritize your values so you will mentally become more aware of what is important to you as a person; the outcome of this list will help define your vision for the future. Your values define who you are, and the more aware you are of what’s truly important to you, these top 10 values will help you make the best choices in every single situation and opportunity that comes your way.