Know your values and you know who you are
Every single one of us has them and needs them – but very often we are not aware of them - values. Values determine a lot in out lives, first and foremost, they influence and form our personality. They are therefore of fundamental importance, and the more aware we are of our individual values - the more we can influence them, adjust them and accept them. Also, knowing our values allows us to know who we are as a person. Once we know that, we can be authentic and find others that share the same ones as we do.
What are values in the first place? They are our fundamental core beliefs really that define us as a person. Values can be things like family, a home, or a strong partnership that we desire in life, however they can also be specific characteristics such as kindness or open – mindedness that we feel we want to portray. Values is really anything that is of fundamental importance to us in our life and that we cannot live without.
The first step to get to know ourselves therefore is to get to know our values. What is of that fundamental importance to us? What do we want to be known for? What aspects in life do we want to pass on to future generations? The best option is to really take out a large white piece of paper and start writing down answers to those questions and anything be it words or phrases that we see as our principles in life. This will bring us closer to not only have values, as we all do, but to become aware of them. Many of us are so distracted in our stressful day to day routine that we don’t become aware of our values and beliefs. Once we are aware, we will feel we know each other a lot better, become more self-confidence and enjoy meeting people that share similar values to our own.
Another important aspect to understand when it comes to values, is that they are dynamic. Values and beliefs change and adjust during our lives. What we might have believed in when we were children might not apply in the same way once we become adults. The reason for that is that values we define as our own are influenced by a lot of factors in our external environment we choose to live in. An example, we might have grown up in the countryside as a child but decided to live in a large city latter on. This is a classic change in our values and preferences that can however change again once we want a family on our own and have children. Values are therefore a work in progress that change aligned with various different stages we experience during our life.
Knowing our values helps us to know ourselves better and answer basic questions of how we want to live. The better we know our values therefore and try to adjust our life according to them, the happier we are. Values influence our self-confidence and help us find our path or red line in life to get a sense of direction in all the opportunities that come our way. It is therefore very recommended to invest time regularly to reflect on our values and to see if they have changed and if this requires us to make changes to our current way of living and approaching things. Knowing your values is the first step to know yourself and can lead to living a happy and fulfilled life in alignment with fundamental values and beliefs.
