What Are Your Values?string(21) "What Are Your Values?"
Your values shape you and your career decisions more than you may realize. Before making any changes in your professional life, you may want to sit and think about what you value. You may be surprised what answers you come up with.
Your values are qualities that are important in the way you live and work. These are different for everybody, so you should be sure to answer this question for yourself and not take another’s answer. Values help us to determine our priorities, and when our actions stray from our values, we can feel the negative ramifications in all aspects of life.
To start with, we all have core values that resonate in our lives. These core values are the building blocks that all of our other values build upon. These values will be stable throughout your life, and typically won’t change based on that situation. To determine some of your core values, answer the following:
- What career should I pursue?
- Should I accept this new job/promotion?
- Should I compromise in this?
- Should I follow tradition in my family/circle?
- What do I want from my personal life?
After figuring out your core values, you can move on to the values specific to helping you move forward in life. When thinking about new opportunities in your life, it is important to understand your values – particularly the ones that may play into the changes. To determine these values, follow the following steps.
- Identify times when you were happiest. Find examples from both your personal and professional lives, and figure out what factors and people played into this happiness.
- Identify the times you felt a sense of pride. Ask yourself, “why was I proud?” and figure out what factors played into that.
- Identify the times when you were most fulfilled and satisfied. What need or desire was fulfilled to leave you feeling satisfied? Why was the experience memorable, and how can you recreate it?
- Determine your top values, based on your past experiences of happiness, pride and fulfillment.
Each person’s experiences will help them build a unique set of values, and staying true to your values can help you get the most out of your professional life to be the happiest in your personal life.
What are some of your most important values? What questions above helped you find these values? Let me know in the comments section below!