How to Know What Your Values Are

Written by Paul Piotrowski - Sunday, October 28th, 2007

Part of the process of getting to know who you are involves becoming aware what you personal values are. Each person has a different set of personal values and each person ranks them differently. In addition to that, most people’s values evolve and change throughout their lifetimes.

Most inter-personal conflicts arise due to differences in values. Today I want to cover the basics of what values are and how to know what YOUR values are.

Let’s start by defining what values are. Values are states of being that we value. For example, honesty and forgiveness are values. How do we go about finding what OUR values are though?

Well, you simply need to ask yourself a series of questions and dig through the answers to determine what is the root value that you seek when you value something. For example, you could say that you value the Internet. However, the Internet would not be a personal value because it is simply a means to an end. Meaning, you have to ask yourself WHY do you value the Internet. I might answer by saying that I value it because it allows me to write this blog and connect with other people. I would then ask myself WHY I value writing this blog. My answer might be Creative Expression or Creativity. If I ask myself WHY I value Creative Expression I get “It makes me feel good.” Once you get to the point where the value leads nowhere else except “feeling good” to you, then you know you’ve arrived at the actual core value.

Another example could be that you value your job. Digging deeper and asking WHY, you might discover that your job satisfies two personal values of Contribution and Security. That’s why you go to work, for those two things. There may be more, but I’m just offering an example.

What you’ll need to do is to sit down with a pen and paper or journal and start writing out what you value and ask yourself WHY until you get personal values. Once you make your list it might look something like this:

Honesty
Contribution
Security
Health
Vitality
Joy
Courage
Strength
Freedom
Understanding

The next step is to organize them in order. Lets just start with three to start with. Lets say that your top three personal values are:

Freedom
Understanding
Joy

Now lets say that your spouse has the same values as you except her top three are:

Security
Honesty
Health

How do you think you’ll make decisions differently from your spouse? If your spouse’s number one value is Security do you think they will be more interested in starting their own business or working in a government position?

How will you interpret things differently in life compared to your spouse if Honesty is number 15 on your list of values and your spouse has it listed as number two?

Are you starting to see why values are important to define?

The truth is that whenever we communicate with people our Ego’s automatically assume that other people’s values are similar or identical to ours. For example one of my values is Understanding and it’s pretty high up there so when I read about a personal development topic like “Values” it gets me excited because it helps me to Understand myself and others better. If Understanding is number 25 on your list, this article is probably boring you because you don’t really care too much about Understanding how things or people work.

So, how do we define our personal values? Well, the easiest way is to start with a list of values and to circle the words that mean the most to us. Then the trick is to go through them and compare them to one another and come up with an order to them. I’ve put together a short list of values you can use as a start. If anyone has more, please let me know and I’ll add them to the list. Here’s the starting list:

Achievement
Advancement
Adventure
Affection
Amazement
Challenge
Change
Community
Competence
Competition
Cooperation
Creativity
Decisiveness
Democracy
Effectiveness
Efficiency
Ethics
Excellence
Excitement
Fame
Friendliness
Growth
Honesty
Independence
Influence
Integrity
Intelligence
Involvement
Knowledge
Leadership
Loyalty
Freedom
Faith
Power
Privacy
Purity
Purpose
Recognition
Responsibility
Security
Self-Respect
Serenity
Simplicity
Sophistication
Speed
Stability
Status
Truth
Wealth
Wisdom

Go through and identify 10-15 values that you have and then rank them in order of importance. It will help you to understand yourself better. If you have a spouse or kids, it’s a good exercise to go through with them as well to see what their values are so that you can better understand how to communicate with them. Keep in mind that some values might stick with you throughout your entire lifetime, while others might change or at least shift places. For example during your highschool and collage years, Family might be near the bottom of your list of values but Freedom might be up top. When you’re in your 40′s perhaps Family and Committment might be near the top now. It’s important to be aware when our values change so that you don’t get stuck in the past.

Enjoy!