Do you know and live your values? My personal values revealed...
Sunday, October 4, 2009 at 09:13AM I learned about the importance of being absolutely clear regarding your personal values when I read Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. At the time I didn't have the depth of thinking or knowledge-of-self necessary to define exactly what was most important to me. Several years later, however, I was easily able to get crystal clear about my most innermost values, wrote them down, and began living by them everyday. If you haven't already identified your own values, I highly recommend it because they can act as a compass that will help you navigate more effectively through life.
If I recall correctly, Stephen Covey recommends you narrow your values down to your top 3 or so. I found this very challenging, so I simply ignored this recommendation and choose to have 8 top values. If you can get to your top 3, great. If not, I don't think it's going to sabotage your ability to succeeded with this work. I review my values every morning along with the personal and professional vision statements I have crafted for myself, which I will share in a future post. You'll see below that I use descriptions to further define what my values mean to me. When you define your values, you may use some of the same labels as I do, but your descriptions will be entirely different. That's fine.
Now, I'm not claiming that I live these values absolutely all the time because that would be untrue. However, I do strive to live up to them everyday and my actions are becoming more aligned with them as time passes. This is the point. Your values should be very important to you, a stretch to fulfill all of the time, and inspiring enough to make you want to live up to them. So, here are my values:
- Integrity/Commitment - I always do what I promise to do when I say I'm going to do it. I commit, take ownership, prioritize, focus, and follow through every time with aggressive single-mindedness and without compromise.
- Health/Self Care - I am committed to continuous improvement in all aspects of my life. Self-care is my spiritual duty and a form of honoring the opportunity to be on this earth. I embody life balance, happiness, freedom from suffering, living with gratitude, and the principle of "use it or lose it."
- Relationships - Relationships are the foundation of a happy, healthy life. This includes family, friends, enemies, co-workers, associates, and people I don't know yet. I am all about affecting people positively whenever possible. I embody respect for and courtesy towards others which includes frequently expressing compassion, kindness, gratitude, and graciousness.
- Authenticity - I always follow my passions. I do not follow the herd or choose to conform to the status quo. I make my own decisions and am completely comfortable being me and act accordingly.
- Perseverance - Failure will not exist in my world if I keep trying. If I fall, I always pick myself back up again and go right back to it.
- Spirit to Serve/Contribution - I know that everything I want out of life will come as I provide service to others, a focused mission and an inspiring vision.
- Knowledge - Knowledge IS power when put into action; knowledge of self, of various subjects, and of the world around me. I approach the world with an unquenchable curiosity and desire for understanding. I embody openness to new experiences and an overarching zest for life.
- Indomitable Spirit - I manifest unshakable self-confidence and courageousness. I always take bold action because I know that "Fate favors the bold" and as Goethe said, "Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid."
What are several of your most important values? Please add your comments to the conversation.
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