What Are Your Values?
Deciding What’s Most Important in Life;
How would you define your values and beliefs?
Before you answer this question, you need to know what, in general, values are.
We define values as beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an emotional investment (either for or against something). Values exert major influence on the behavior of an individual and serve as broad guidelines in all situations (BusinessDictionary.com)
They (should) determine your priorities, and, deep down, they’re probably the measures you use to tell if your life is turning out the way you want it to.
When the things that you do and the way you behave match your values, life is usually good – you’re satisfied and content. But when these don’t align with your personal values, that’s when things feel… wrong. This can be a real source of unhappiness.
Understanding your own set of personal values can be a powerful tool. Increased self-awareness and knowledge of what is most important to you can help to identify how you act, what motivations drive you and better understand why you react to particular events or situations more than others.
Values can and do change over time depending on environment, parental influence, teachers/schooling, friendship groups, specific situations and many other contributing factors. Importantly, values can be shaped through both negative and positive experiences. An individual may hold a core value based on something that has happened in the past that they regret, have unhappy memories about or the same value can be important to an individual because of positive stimuli.
How do you figure out your Values and beliefs ?
Understanding your own and other people’s core values is a wonderful way to establish priorities, and open productive dialogue. While many values in life are important, making the tough call to determine your top values creates interesting insights.
The values you consider core should remain relatively stable, but may change somewhat throughout your life depending on experiences and current life stage. Revisiting your results from time to time can raise additional questions to consider.
When we started The PEAK Fleet in 2016, we brainstormed, debated, and narrowed down our values to the top 10. And then, ultimately, established the top 4 of PERSISTENCE, EMPATHY, AUTHENTICITY, and KINDNESS, as we set the vision and mission for what would become The PEAK Fleet. Our values were so vital to us, we named the company after them!
After the powerful experience we have had in discovering and constantly referencing our core corporate, or PEAK Values®, we wanted to share the exercise with others in a new, creative, and beautifully designed way. We created the PEAK Values® card deck with that in mind.
The card deck can be used in many different ways. The instructions for the basic “Top Values” Identification exercise are included with the deck, and on this page. In addition, we have created several other exercises that may be useful. Please enjoy these recommended exercises with your PEAK Values® card deck(s), and as you invent your own, new ways to use them, we’d love to hear about it!
Personal reflection activity – Identify your top 6 values (1 deck needed)
This reflection activity can be done alone, or as step 1 to a group discussion.
This deck includes Values Cards and 2 blank cards. Each person completing the evaluation should first quickly narrow the field down to 28 top values, adding 1 or 2 of their own if those top life values are not found in the deck.
The cards are 3.5″ x 3.5″ and the deck includes 55 core values cards (and one blank), and instructions in a rigid box.
Next, taking some additional time to really contemplate the nuances of the values, narrow the field again down to 14. Finally, identify your Top 6 values.
