Core values can be described as basic and fundamental beliefs that guide or motivate attitudes or actions. In short, values help us to determine what is important to us and provide general guidelines for conduct.
When thinking about values, morals also come to mind. While they are related, they are not the same.
Think of values as the magnets in your moral compass.
Your values will be your compass and guide you in the right direction.
– Allison Dunn
Identifying your values allows you to use them when making decisions about how to live your life.
One thing to keep in mind when defining our core values is that everybody is different, and what makes one person happy may leave another person feeling anxious or disengaged.
Defining your personal values is the first step to living by them, leaving you feeling more fulfilled and available to make choices that make you happy.
By defining your personal values, you discover what’s truly important to you.
Below is a list of core values commonly used in our values workshop and other leadership programs. This list is not exhaustive, but it will give you an idea of some common core values (also referred to as personal values). My recommendation is to select up to ten that are extremely important to you and then select less than five core values to focus on.
- Abundance
- Acceptance
- Accomplishment
- Accountability
- Achievement
- Adventure
- Authenticity
- Authority
- Autonomy
- Balance
- Beauty
- Belonging
- Benevolence
- Bravery
- Boldness
- Calmness
- Candor
- Charity
- Challenge
- Clarity
- Closeness
- Compassion
- Citizenship
- Community
- Commitment
- Competency
- Congruency
- Contribution
- Courage
- Creativity
- Credibility
- Curiosity
- Determination
- Devotion
- Directness
- Diversity
- Dreaming
- Eagerness
- Ease
- Education
- Empathy
- Enthusiasm
- Excellence
- Expertise
- Fairness
- Faith
- Fame
- Friendships
- Fun
- Growth
- Happiness
- Honesty
- Humor
- Impact
- Independence
- Individualism
- Influence
- Inner Harmony
- Inspiration
- Integrity
- Joy
- Justice
- Kindness
- Knowledge
- Leadership
- Learning
- Love
- Loyalty
- Making a Difference
- Mastery
- Meaning
- Mindfulness
- Motivation
- Openness
- Optimism
- Peace
- Perseverance
- Pleasure
- Poise
- Popularity
- Power
- Prosperity
- Recognition
- Religion
- Reputation
- Resourcefulness
- Resilience
- Respect
- Responsibility
- Security
- Self-Respect
- Service
- Sharing
- Spirituality
- Spontaneity
- Stability
- Success
- Status
- Strength
- Teamwork
- Thankfulness
- Timeliness
- Trust
- Trustworthiness
- Truth
- Uniqueness
- Unity
- Warmth
- Wealth
- Winning
- Wisdom
- Wonder
Enjoy the process of defining your values!
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