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20 Personal Values Examples to Help You Find Your Own

20 Personal Values Examples to Help You Find Your Own

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Understanding and Embodying Values

It's Sunday morning. You're standing in line for your favorite cafe, eager to enjoy your usual cup of cappuccino and a good book. Four people are ahead of you. Then three. Then two. All of a sudden, a man cuts to the front. The barista looks startled. But seemingly, they weren't looking for trouble. They take his order and you‚re up next.

'Can you believe that guy?' you murmur to the barista. Your values usually demand patience and fairness, which the man blatantly lacked.

Judgments made each day are based upon our values. Values influence our behaviors and understanding of what is right and wrong. They shape our thoughts, actions, and feelings. Ultimately, our values guide us to discover our purpose in life. Our career goals, personal life and even relationships are all contingent upon our values.

Values are sometimes shared among different societies and cultures. These societal values help to define what is judged as right or wrong, good or bad. But as we can see from the cafe incident, there is room for deviation.

The primary values held in high regard by Americans include: having a happy relationship, an honest and respectable life, and safety and security.

Knowing and comprehending one's values is important for self-awareness, and knowing oneself as a person. By understanding our values, we can become more aware and understanding of the world around us. With a better understanding of our values, our emotional state and communication skills can also become enhanced.

Identifying Your Values

Yet, pinpointing our values is a difficult task. It requires a great deal of introspection and honesty with oneself, something that is often hard to come by in the rush of everyday life. To make things easier, we have compiled a list of personal values examples. Consider them, determine which ones you relate to, and examine how they reflect in your day-to-day life. From that point, you can launch your self-improvement journey and discover your true direction.

Core Beliefs

Before we get into those examples, let's go over a few core principles. Knowing how values work and why they are important is key to personal growth.

What Are Personal Core Values?

Personal values define our concept of 'good' and 'bad' within our culture, society, and community. They can be seen as the ideal standards of behavior, such as patience and honesty. Most people have some guiding principles that direct their decisions, goals, and overall attitude. These are likely their core values.

What Is a Personal Values System?

A personal values system is the culmination of all of your personal beliefs. Together, these values craft how we interact with the world.

How Are Personal Values Formed?

Our values are usually based on our upbringing. Influences such as our parents, siblings, peers, school, community, culture, religion, and country, all impact our values.

Why Are Core Personal Values Important?

Generally, core values are paramount to creating social unity, yet they can also cause conflict or discrimination. Values are integral to our personalities, and also shape how we interact with the world. Understanding our values can help us make better decisions and find contentment in life. It can also help us to recognize different perspectives, as many people possess similar values. Additionally, understanding values can help us to comprehend why individuals make the choices they do and how to work with them accordingly.

Identifying our personal values might take time, but it is definitely worth it. When we understand our values, we can explain our convictions more effectively to others. With a better understanding of ourselves, we can make decisions and take action with the foundation of our ideals.

Understanding and Living by Your Values

Research conducted by the Association for Consumer Research found that people of varied backgrounds can be identified by their values with 65% accuracy, although different values can potentially lead to tensions. Interestingly, personal values can change continuously over time.

The Importance of Understanding Your Personal Values

In order to reach your full potential, it is essential to understand and stay in tune with your own personal values system. Values can be tested by life experiences, such as having children - a person may think that order and predictability are of paramount importance before having kids, only to discover that laughter, creativity and flexibility are more important. Through self-reflection, it is possible to identify any values that may be holding you back or damaging your relationships, and make changes to better align them with your life.

Examples of Core Values to Consider

  • Altruism
  • Dependability
  • Integrity
  • Generosity
  • Courage
  • Gratitude
  • Well-being
  • Sustainability
  • Family
  • Self-respect
  • Adaptability
  • Uniqueness
  • Assertiveness
  • Support
  • Open-mindedness
  • Personal growth
  • Flexibility
  • Frugality
  • Improvement
  • Self-reliance

Brainstorming Exercises to Identify Values

To help identify your values, consider doing the following:

  • Examine the most meaningful moments of your life and what made them significant
  • Analyze the lack of fulfillment from unfulfilling moments
  • Pay attention to which stories inspire you
  • Recognize what makes you angry and why
  • Imagine your ideal world
  • Take pride in your accomplishments and why

Taking Action Based on Your Values

After identifying values, the next step is to take action. This includes creating a list of value priorities and making decisions when values contradict one another. Consider the best course of action to take when only one value can be satisfied. Additionally, use your values to create a five-year plan and vision statement and set goals. To truly make an impact, remember the following tips:

  • Prioritize and occasionally alter your values
  • Make changes to your life to honor your values
  • Create a five-year plan based on your values
  • Take action to work and live in alignment with your values

Understanding and living up to your values may require effort and inner growth. But, with dedication, you can have more purpose and satisfaction.

What Do You Have To Change To Better Live By Your Values?

Setting goals to better live by your values is a process that can be guided by prioritizing your values. For instance, if cooperation is valued, you can seek out a job involving teamwork. It's important to recognize that sometimes values conflict with reality and it's important to allow for exceptions. To remain consistent with your values, consider building habits into your lifestyle such as reading your values every morning or keeping them in a visible place. If you do stray from your values, reflect on the situation afterwards and consider what could have been done differently.

Inner Work is a concept that involves exploring your inner self in order to better connect with the world around you. It allows for the recognition that certain values do not serve one's best interests, giving you the courage to make necessary changes to improve your emotional health and achieve peace.

Recalling your values helps you to stay on track and make the right choices, even in trying moments like when someone cuts in line and you become angry. With understanding and commitment, you can learn to live and work with more purpose and satisfaction.

Identifying Your Values

Identifying and living your values can be a difficult challenge. To help you on your journey to self-discovery, working with Shiken can be a great way to gain clarity on what will allow you to become your best self.

Knowing When to Make Exceptions

Having values in life is an important aspect of living an idealistic existence; however, it is important to allow for exceptions to these values as they may not always be realistic in certain circumstances. For example, it is acceptable to compromise on a value such as loyalty to a friend if they have violated your trust.

Creating Habits to Stay on Track

Once you have identified your values, it can be difficult to remain consistent in your everyday life, especially when you are busy. To help with this, developing good habits can be invaluable in staying on track with your values. These could involve reading them out each morning, planning your day around them, or keeping them visible as a reminder. Additionally, should you make a mistake and go against your values, it can be beneficial to take time to reflect and analyse what could have been done differently to prevent it from happening again.

Practising Inner Work

Inner work is connected to understanding your place in the world and how this applies to your values. Taking time to reflect and practice inner work can help you make changes so that you can live more in line with your values each day. It is important to be able to recognise when values become outdated and no longer serve you, as well as when attitudes do more harm than good. Through this process, it is possible to have the courage and motivation to make changes and live with more clarity, purpose and passion.

Living According to Your Values

Living by your values is essential for emotional health and wellbeing, as well as for unlocking your full potential. Once you have implemented values into your life, you will begin to notice a positive change and you will feel more in tune with yourself.

Leading People as People: A Conversation with Cynt Marshall, CEO of the Dallas Mavericks

Dallas Mavericks CEO Cynt Marshall believes in people-first leadership and has experienced the benefits of this herself. In order to do this, she had to do her own inner work and make changes to ensure that she was living out her values every day.

Utilising Job Crafting for Work Engagement

As well as applying your values to your life, it is possible to apply them to your work. Job crafting is the process of modifying elements of your job in order to make it more applicable to your values and promote work engagement and motivation. This could involve re-evaluating tasks and responsibilities, reframing your job description or seeking out additional tasks or projects that appeal to you.

Instilling Family Values

Family values refer to beliefs and attitudes that families pass down from one generation to the next. It is important to consider which values you wish to sell to your family, as this will shape their behaviour and environment. Establishing values helps to provide stability and security, as well as creating healthy relationships and boundaries.

Beliefs vs. Values

Knowing the difference between beliefs and values is important when it comes to setting expectations. A belief is an opinion or judgement about something, whereas values are determined by your own beliefs. Understanding this difference can help you become your best self and free you from expectations.

8 Ethical Values Every Professional Should Adopt

Having a code of ethics is essential for any professional and adhering to ethical values is a great way to ensure that your decisions and actions align with what you value. Examples of ethical values include justice, excellence, honesty, integrity, respect and trust. If adopted successfully, ethical values can have numerous benefits for professionals, such as increased productivity and better decision-making skills.

Advantages of Having Core Values, 45 Company Examples and Steps to Identify Yours

Company core values are essential for developing and maintaining a healthy corporate culture and ideal working environment. These values provide a framework for businesses to guide their decisions and are typically based on a company's mission, vision and goals. Examples of core values include collaboration, customer focus, innovation, integrity and respect. Once core values are established, it is important to share them throughout the organisation ensuring that each member of staff understands and adheres to them.

Benefits of Having Core Values in Your Workplace

  • Help to define a strong corporate culture
  • Increase employee engagement
  • Provide guidance for decision-making
  • Allow employees to understand company expectations

45 Company Core Values Examples

  • Accountability
  • Commitment
  • Compassion
  • Continuous Improvement
  • Creativity
  • Dependability
  • Efficiency
  • Empathy
  • Excellence
  • Flexibility
  • Friendliness
  • Growth
  • Honesty
  • Innovation
  • Integrity
  • Leadership
  • Learning
  • Openness
  • Patience
  • Positivism
  • Professionalism
  • Responsibility
  • Respect
  • Results-orientation
  • Safety
  • Self-motivation
  • Teamwork
  • Trust
  • Understanding
  • Unity
  • Vision
  • Wellness
  • Acceptance
  • Adaptability
  • Appreciation
  • Balance
  • Clarity
  • Collaboration
  • Communication
  • Competence
  • Consideration
  • Customer Focus
  • Empowerment
  • Fairness
  • Integrity
  • Loyalty
  • Passion
  • Quality

Steps to Identify Your Company's Core Values

Identifying and establishing your company's core values can be a complex task, however, taking a few steps can make the process easier.

  • Consult key stakeholders: To get everyone on the same page, it is important to consult with key stakeholders in the organisation. Involvement from a variety of perspectives will help to ensure that the values selected accurately reflect the overall mission and culture of the organisation.
  • Develop the list of values: Once key stakeholders have had the opportunity to provide input, develop a list of core values that address the needs and values of your company. The list should be realistic, concise and specific enough that employees can understand and adhere to them.
  • Share and communicate the values: It is important to share the core values with all stakeholders and ensure that employees are aware of them and understand how to operate in accordance with them.

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