Personal Values

Everyone has a set of values that guide their actions and give their life meaning. Even if you are unaware of what they are they are there helping you make decisions and be who you are. When we are aware of what they are and how they impact us, we can use our values to reaffirm ourselves and what we stand for. In this post I will be explaining what my personal values are and how you find yours.

I have identified my top ten values that help me show up as the best version of each and every day. The first three are what I see as my core values. The rest are still an important part of the recipe for who I am. The list is as follows:

• Love: Love to me is the willingness to share your energy with others. The act of sharing this energy give me more energy and makes me want to keep offering it to others. Love keeps me ready and willing to serve those that need my help.
• Kindness: Because I have the energy and will to help people, I strive to find ways spend that energy. You have no idea what battles people are fighting, what they hide from view. giving them kindness is the least you can do but will have immeasurable effects on them.
• Patience: This is not the ability to sit and wait for things to happens. Patience is a level of trust that you express to yourself that you are on the right path. That you no matter what the world throws at you, you are on the path and you will reach your goals.
• Creativity: Being creative is one of the most impactful things our species has ever done. While we used to create campfire stories to tell others how to avoid danger, with time we learned and grew into creating more. We create and share art to invoke thought and emotion. We create machines to defy the laws of physics so that we can reach farther, faster, and easier than ever before.
• Balance: Balance is not a fine line to tread easy on. Balance is a sturdy foundation that you build consistently on top of. It is strengthened by expressing where your boundaries are and who they include.
• Gratitude: This one is a force multiplier. The more you express gratitude, the more you will find things to be grateful for. Gratitude breeds positivity inside of us and helps us show up as a more powerful version of ourselves.
• Service: When done from a place of selflessness, service is powerful. The experience of helping another person on their journey is humbling and impactful. It helps open your eyes to the many possible paths that your life could have been on. There may be people in this world that only help others as a means to an end, but that manipulation will never bring the same transformation to either party.
• Empathy: Being able to sit back and experience another’s truth without judgment creates a certain curiosity. I love seeing how others experience life, because it gives me a larger picture of what life is. That helps me deliver stronger transformation. If we can help increase another person’s joy and ease their difficulties without affecting our own, shouldn’t we do everything in our power to help them?
• Integrity: This is the one that blends them all together. Doing the right thing, even when no one is watching, even when it isn’t the easy way. The way you do anything is the way that you everything. You can’t hide from yourself, so do it ALL the way that makes you proud to be you.
• Playfulness: I am a father of three wonderful little humans Holden, Alphonse, and Amara. my days are full of play. Taking the weight of stress off your mind and letting yourself be free from time to time boost your creativity and helps you find new paths foreword. We love games because of that. Part of how I manage to be my best self is because I make my challenges into games. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes you even have to start over. Just play, and you will find your way.

All of these values mix together and create lenses for how I see the world. They show me how I can best interact with my surroundings and the people in them. They also create a lens for the world to view me. When I act within these values, I am expressing my best self. It is the standard of which those that know me expect to get from me. When I do things that don’t align with them it confuses everyone. We communicate who we are by living in alignment with them.

What about these values speaks to you? Do you have a different view on any of the values I expressed? That’s the beauty of being human. We all have different experiences and different things resonate with us differently. So where did I get these? and how do you start down the path to find yours?

I want you to look over these words and pick out ten of them like I did. Think of which one’s matter most to you and what they mean to you. Then take that down to five and from that five pick your top three, or your core values. This is not an easy exercise, and it will require some time and introspection. If you give yourself the space and listen to what comes up, you will begin to hear your inner voice and you will see what your values are.

As a bonus you can show this list, or even your list to a loved one or friend and ask them which ones best describe you and see how in alignment your actions are with what you feel you express them to be.

I love this exercise because it helped me learn how I fit into the world. How I can help. I am grateful for where this knowledge is taking me, and I know that it will help you on your journey as well.