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Understanding Your Values Knowing your values puts you on a path to living an aligned and fulfilling life. To know your values is to know who you are right now in your life, what you stand for and what makes you unique. Your values are like a compass that shows you how to navigate decisions and choices in a way that will point you to a fulfilling and satisfying life when your values are being honored. When your values are not being honored, you can l feel off track, stepped on or downright bored. People often confuse values with morals, but they are not the same. Morals are a person s standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do. Values are not chosen, they are intrinsic to you and are unique as your fingerprint. Use the form on the next page to list your values. The questions may help get you started. One value may be similar to another and have very different meaning for you. As an example: integrity and honesty; collaboration and teamwork; freedom and flexibility; freedom and independence, etc. *Source: Coaches Training Institute: Co-Active Coaching: Changing Business, Transforming Lives 2
Getting in Touch With Your Values Answer the following questions: What do I absolutely love in life? What is truly important to me in life? What are the proudest moments in my life? What makes me really angry in the world? What can t I be with in life? What is the value here that is not being honored? 3
Values Clarification Exercise 1. Use a pencil! This is an exercise that could involve some erasing! 2. Begin by reviewing your answers on Page 3. From your answers, pull out your top values and list them in the first column called Values. 3. Review the list on the following page. Are there any values that are missing from the list? If so, list them all in the space below. 4. Look at all the values that you listed and try to whittle them down to only 10. 5. For each value, write a few description words in the next column that describes what the value means to you. 6. Now, rank your values from 1 to 10 in the 3rd column do the best you can and remember that this is a work in progress! Value: A few words or phrase that describes this value for you: Rank: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 4
Values List While it is ideal that you use your own words and the exercise on the previous page, you can use the list below if you re stuck. Which of these words resonate with you most? Accomplishment Accountability Achievement Adventure Artistic Expression Authenticity Autonomy Balance Beauty Belonging Camaraderie Career Caring Challenge Change Character Collaboration Commitment Community Compassion Compensation Competency Courage Creativity Dedication Dependability Depth Dignity Directness Discipline Diversity Do what you say Duty Education Efficiency Empathy Enjoyment Entrepreneurial Equality Excellence Exploration Faith Family Financial independence Flexibility Follow-through Friendship Finances Fitness Freedom Fun Generosity Gratitude Genuineness Harmony Health Helping Others Helping Society Honesty Honor Hope Humility Humor Independence Identity Influence Innovativeness Inspiration Integrity Job Security Joyfulness The Journey Knowledge Leadership Learning Legacy Leisure Love Loyalty Making a difference Mastery Meaning Motivation Nature Opportunity Optimism Passion Patience Peace Perseverance Planning Precision Principles Prosperity Purpose Prestige Professionalism Quality Recognition Relationship Respect Romance Responsibility Security Safety Service Sincerity Spirituality Spontaneity Stability Steadiness Success Teamwork Thoughtfulness Truth Using my skills Variety Wisdom Worship 5
My Values Made Real For this exercise, answer the following three questions below for your Top 5 Values.. Value How does this value show up in my career, interests, passions, hobbies? How does this value show up in contributing to others? What can I do to honor these values even more? 6