How to determine your life values?

WHAT ARE VALUES

Every person has values, but not every person realizes that he has them and that they are important. Why two people facing the same task or problem will choose a different solution. Why is it that if two people are offered the same job with attractive conditions and salary, one person will agree and the other will refuse? Given equal initial data, it is they—our values—that influence decision making. It is possible that status and financial well-being are important to the person who accepted the offer, and he is ready to pay for it with overtime or a long journey to the office. For another person, his family may be more important, so he does not consider options in which he will have little time to communicate with his loved ones. Hope this example encourages you to define your values.

Values are what fill our lives with meaning, help us make decisions and answer internal questions “why?” Living in harmony with them, we feel harmony and satisfaction. Without knowing your values, you can make decisions that conflict with them and cause feelings of discomfort and dissatisfaction. You know that gnawing feeling that something is wrong? Now, this is our indicator, telling us that somewhere we took a wrong turn.

Knowing what is important to us can make the decision-making process easier, without initially considering options that do not suit our internal attitudes, and also feel a sense of satisfaction from what is happening in life.

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Definition of values

Before you define your values, you first need to understand what they are. Your values are the things you consider most important in your life and work. They set priorities and, deep down, are the measuring stick you use to answer one of your most important questions: “Am I living my life the way I want to?” Usually, if our values coincide with our lifestyle and behavior, we become happy and feel harmony. Otherwise, we experience an unpleasant feeling of awkwardness (sometimes cognitive dissonance), which we try to drive into the subconscious as quickly as possible so as not to feel it. This is why it is so important to consciously identify your values.

How values help us

Values exist whether you are aware of them or not. And life can be much easier if you do realize it.

If you value family more than anything else but work 70 hours a week, will you feel stressed? When you know your values, you can make smarter decisions that are right for you. Consider the following questions:

What job would be right for me?
Should I accept the promotion?
Should I start my own business?
Should I follow tradition or find my own way?
Should I stand my ground or compromise?

Take 20 minutes and answer these questions honestly. Perhaps you realize that you must defend your point of view, but you will compromise with loved ones.

Defining your values

When you define your values, you will understand what is truly important to you. A great way to do this is to look back at your life and identify situations in which you feel confident and your mood improves.

Identify the situations in which you are happiest

Consider examples from your personal and professional life:

What were you doing?
Have you been with other people? With whom exactly?
What other factors contributed to your happiness?

Identify the situations in which you are most proud of yourself

When were you proud of yourself?
Did other people share your pride in yourself? Who was that?
What other factors contributed to your pride in yourself?

Identify situations in which you feel fulfilled and satisfied.

What wishes of yours were fulfilled?
What events gave your life meaning and why?
What other factors contributed to your feelings of satisfaction?

Determine your values based on your experience of happiness, pride in actions and fulfillment

Why do you consider some events in your life to be the most important and happy? Highlight the main values (from five to ten):

Responsibility
Achievements
Study
Altruism
Bravery
Calm
Control
Creative approach to everything
Empathy
Openness
Striving for Mastery
Love
Justice
Health
Hard work
Family
Loyalty
Positivity
Self-control
Serving people
Simplicity
Happiness
Spontaneity
Understanding

You can use this list, but keep in mind that it is not complete, so you may be able to add some value to it yourself.

Highlight your core values

This is a very important and difficult step because you need to look deep within yourself.

Write a list of your main values.
Look at the first two values and ask yourself: Which of these two values is more important to me? Remember the events of the past to understand what value makes you proud of yourself and happy.
Compare your values and identify the three main ones. However, over time you may realize that something is more important to you. Listen to yourself and draw conclusions.

Confirm your list of values

Do these values make you feel good?
Are you proud of yourself for sticking to them?
Are you trying to live up to these values? Did you choose them only because most people adhere to them? This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but think about it.

The main sign that the values have been chosen correctly is a feeling of fullness and integrity. This means that your feelings, thoughts and words match your actions.

We wish you good luck!

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WHAT ARE THE VALUES?

There are about 200 types of values in different classifications. I will write about the main ones. But remember that those listed below are not a complete list; you may well add something of your own to it.

So, the core values:

- Family, relationships, children - this is comfort, home warmth, harmonious relationships in the family, caring for parents and children, etc.

- Comfort, home, financial stability - these are the values of an orderly and comfortable life, peace of mind.

— Having your own business, a hobby , is realizing yourself through a business that brings joy (not necessarily what you do for a living, but this business brings you joy and its own personal meaning).

- Career, power, status - this is social status, position in society, the ability to influence processes, etc.

— Education and advanced training are the value of developing skills.

— Personal growth, self-development - this includes self-knowledge, attention to oneself, the search for harmony, the search for one’s “I.”

— Beauty, health — appearance, physical characteristics, grace, taking care of your body, conscious nutrition, etc.

— Spiritual growth - this includes both religious values and the search for meaning (for example, the meaning of life), the desire to help others, volunteering.

— Communication is a social value, friends, colleagues.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that love is not a value, but a feeling. Money in itself is also not a value; value is what is hidden behind it. For example, power, social status, a sense of financial security.

How to adapt and change your values when necessary

Your personal values are not set in stone. While some core values are likely to stay with you throughout your life, others may change with life circumstances or as you age and you begin to consider other things important. Even if the values remain the same, the order of their priority may shift.

For example, deciding to have a family and children may cause you to value security and financial stability more than when you were alone. Divorce can lead to a renewed desire for freedom and self-discovery.

Therefore, it is better to regularly check this list for changes. Repeat the process of brainstorming, listing, and prioritizing and see if the results change.

How often should I do this? At least once a year and any time you go through a significant life change, such as job loss, bereavement, illness, divorce, etc.

Of course, you will also want to re-read your values and review them regularly more than once a year, and if you notice that something is no longer relevant, you can reconsider the values.

When you have a new list, re-examine your goals and rewrite them to reflect your new or reset values. Start using your updated list of values to guide your daily life, as discussed in the previous section.

HOW TO DETERMINE YOUR VALUES

Now I'll give you some exercises to help you figure out what matters to you.

Rank your list of values.

Take the list of values above. Add, if necessary, values that are not on the list, but that came to mind. After that, rank the resulting list on a scale from 1 to 10. In this case, 1 is not at all important to me, 10 is very important to me. Do not try to give an assessment based on generally accepted standards, put your honest mark.

Write a wish list.

Write 15-20 wishes that you want to fulfill in a table format with the following columns:

name of the wish;
when did it appear?
what is it connected with;
how important it is to fulfill (from 1 to 10).

An example table is below.

Return to reading the article after completing the task.

Afterwards, correlate each item on the list with values. You can use the list above from the article and/or add your own. See if your top values on your wish list compare with those you prioritized in Exercise 1. I'm sure some of them do.

How to determine the main values of life

So, a clearly formed system of personal values will allow you to enjoy life and prevent life from reaching a dead end. Let's figure out how to develop this system. To do this you will have to be honest with yourself. There is no need to be embarrassed to admit that your values may be slightly different from others. Take a piece of paper and write down all the important areas in which you would like to achieve recognition. As a rule, the main values in a person’s life look something like this:

• Family; • Wealth; • Friendship; • Health; • Career; • Studies; • Love.

These are perhaps the most “popular” values of people, but you may also have some of your own interests and dreams: travel, sports, buying a home, for example. To prevent the list from looking too impressive, you can simplify and combine some items. For most people, the concepts of “love” and “family” are considered inseparable. And for some, wealth means a successful career. But this does not always happen: there are people looking for love, but rejecting a family union. There are also those who want to achieve heights in their careers not for the sake of money, but to realize their own importance or the respect of their colleagues.

Drawing up a ladder of values

After identifying the main goals, the most difficult step lies ahead - determining the role of values in a person’s life. To do this, you will have to think carefully about what is most important on the list. Without which your life will lose meaning. You can live without success at work, but without family you cannot. Or they are ready to sacrifice their studies for the sake of love. You will have to understand what is the main value in your life in order to put it at the highest level. And so on in descending order - according to the degree of importance for you. It is interesting that when the main values in a person’s life are identified and placed in their places, one can clearly see one’s main personality traits and qualities. For example, a careerist will never put travel at the forefront; rather, education and wealth will be at the top of his list.

What's the point of identifying values?

A system of personal values allows you to purposefully strive for success and achieve your desires. Thanks to it, you will be able to analyze and understand in which area you want to succeed. Over time, your scale of values may change. As well as your goals will change. Having achieved excellent results at work, you will be able to put your career aside for a while, looking for love, and then building a family. This will allow you to manage your own resources, and not waste them on “everything at once” or completely in emptiness. But the most important thing is that with the help of a value system you will understand where and on what you spent your precious time - usefully or in vain.