“A personal value system is a set of principles or ideals that drive and/or guide your behavior. It helps you express who you are and what you stand for.” Z. Hereford

Values are those things which we hold important. Our priorities, goals and decisions are guided by them. Recognizing these values can help us focus with more clarity on our purpose, get aligned with our values, and get true satisfaction in achieving our vision.

“Values are guiding principles that determine individual morality and conduct. Personal values are people’s internal conception of what is good, beneficial, important, useful, beautiful, desirable, constructive, etc.” boundless.com

Having clear values is helpful when deciding on a career or making life-changing choices. There are two types of values that we need to consider:

1. Personal life value priorities –These are our moral beliefs, such as loyalty, balance, fitness, freedom, self-actualization, fun, success, wealth and/or family, etc.
2. Personal job-content objectives – These are the qualities that we need to improve and to focus on to advance our career, such as leadership, teamwork, technical, creativity, mathematical etc.

Assesing Your Values

Every now and then we find ourselves in a state of confusion. Where do we go next in life? What choices to make? This is a good opportunity to stop, take a deep breath and look back. This process of reminiscing about the past is a helpful way of evaluating our values. Look deep inside and follow these simple steps:

1. Recognize the times when you were the happiest
2. Identify the times when you were most proud
3. Remember the times when you were most fulfilled and satisfied
4. Conclude your top values, based on your experiences of happiness, pride and fulfilment
   Example of values: assertiveness, abundance, joy, friendship, being the best, intuition, religiousness, effectiveness, skilfulness etc.
5. Prioritize your top values
   You may have come up with a long list of values, and the toughest part is choosing only three each for both personal and job related ones.This may feel hard at first, because we tend to want everything in life. However, when we go even deeper, we discover that there are some things that we want more than others. Prioritizing is the key for knowing what’s truly important to us.
6. Reaffirm your values
   Evaluate your life now and check if it fits your chosen top values.

Key to this whole process is being aware of our own authentic selves. If we are easily influenced into doings things that we are not happy about, if we blindly follow other people without knowing what we really want, we won’t experience truly meaningful living. We may wake up one day with the realisation that our own life is drifting away from us.

Aligining With Our Vision

Personal values are a central part of who we are, and also define who we want to be. When our values are clear, our vision and purpose in life become clear.

Imagine receiving an offer from a global company with a higher pay but rigorous work hours, knowing that your top priority values are freedom and time, while your vision is to be a freelancer or to work from home. If you stick to your values and vision, you will reject the offer.

Looking for a career that supports our values helps us achieve our vision.

Our values are not absolute or set in stone. Our values evolve as we mature, and are influenced by life and our constantly changing circumstances. However, by discovering our values, we can learn what’s truly significant to us, whether in course of our whole life or at this very moment.

Try doing the steps mentioned above and compare these values with what your current reality is. Congratulate yourself if where you are in life right now is aligned with your values and with your future plans. Keep tracking your progress and stay on course.

“It’s not hard to make decisions, once you know what your values are.” Roy E. Disney

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