Your values are the things that you believe are important in the way you live and work. Values exist, whether you recognize them or not.
When the things you do and the way you behave match your values, life is usually smooth.
But when you don’t act in alignment with your personal values, it creates tension and can be a real source of unhappiness. On the other hand you might (consciously or unconsciously) judge other people in view of your own values and to overlook the fact that these need not be theirs…
This is why making a conscious effort to identify your values is so essential. Use the following list of common personal values to help you get started.
- Accountability
- Achievement
- Advancement
- Adventure
- Aesthetics
- Affiliation
- Authenticity
- Authority
- Autonomy
- Awareness
- Balance
- Beauty
- Boldness
- Calmness
- Challenge
- Change and variation
- Citizenship
- Cleanliness
- Collaboration
- Commitment
- Community
- Compassion
- Competency
- Competition
- Confidence
- Connection
- Consciousness
- Consistency
- Contentedness
- Contribution
- Cooperation
- Courage
- Creativity
- Curiosity
- Decisiveness
- Dependability
- Determination
- Devotion
- Dignity
- Diligence
- Discipline
- Diversity
- Duty
- Economic security
- Effectiveness
- Empathy
- Encouragement
- Equality
- Excellence
- Experience
- Expertise
- Fairness
- Faith
- Fame
- Family
- Flexibility
- Focus
- Freedom
- Friendships
- Fun
- Generosity
- Gratitude
- Growth
- Happiness
- Health
- Helping others
- Honesty
- Humility
- Humor
- Independence
- Influence
- Inner Harmony
- Integrity
- Intuition
- Justice
- Kindness
- Knowledge
- Lawful
- Leadership
- Learning
- Love
- Loyalty
- Meaningful Work
- Mindfulness
- Openness
- Optimism
- Order
- Passion
- Patience
- Peace
- Peacefulness
- Perseverance
- Persistence
- Personal Development
- Persuasiveness
- Physical fitness
- Pleasure
- Popularity
- Professionalism
- Prosperity
- Reason (or Logic)
- Recognition
- Religion
- Reputation
- Resilience
- Respect
- Responsibility
- Sacrifice
- Security
- Self-Respect
- Service
- Spirituality
- Stability
- Status
- Success
- Trustworthiness
- Wealth
- Wisdom