Importance of Personal Values
Human psychology says, In every situation, humans act and react as per their core personal values. In nutshell, the values one believe makes the person. What exactly are these values? How it is connected with Personal Development? Lets see,
What is a Personal Value?
Personal Values are beliefs or principles. Upon some of these Personal Values, people build their life consciously or unconsciously. These beliefs or principles becomes the core ideology of a person when he starts to adopt it. We are made up of various values and unknowingly we prioritise them. All our decisions are depends on our personal values and their prioritisation.
Personal values differs for each person and everyone in the world are set of different personal values in different proportion. This difference makes every person so unique. It inadvertently affects every decision they make and so we could see people make different choices in same situations. One's core values form his/her mental picture and the mental picture will reflect in their decision.
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| Personal Values Image by John Hain from Pixabay |
Why Personal Values?
Animals live on their instincts and change depends on their situation. They take decisions on their instincts alone. But when humans start to think, their decisions were based on analysis. Most of the time, the emotional decisions are hard, not because of the lack of data we have in hand, but the clash between two values they believe.
While taking each decision, you are growing a value and at some point of time, the value charges you to take action when presented a situation. Even if not conscious, it happens unconsciously. So Personal values are part of us and we are driven by them. In other words, it makes the humans as thinking animals and it creates a society on a collective values the individuals possess.
How Personal Values affects individual?
A child starts to copy the values of its parents or with whom it spends most of the time. But, over time, it can start to create its own values based on circumstances. A kid may be from a conservative background, but later he/she can adopt a liberal lifestyle. A fine example is portrayed in "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by the Author Robert Kiyosaki. He mentioned that, in some point of time, he took advice from both but implemented what he thought best. There comes the analysis part. He analysed and did what he thought right and that decisions grew the Rich Dad Values in him which made him super successful.
So the values you believe and adopt, shape your life. Also it plays an important role in reflecting your self confidence. When you do what you believe, you choose a path and start your journey. When you are forced to do opposite of what you believe or you choose actions which doesn't reflect your values but oppose them, subconsciously you are shrinking the belief.
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| Personal Values - Decisions Image by Tumisu from Pixabay |
Right or Wrong, following the values by action, increase you happiness and satisfaction. On the other hand, if you do things oppose your values, you feel guilty. Each time, the action taken doesn't reflect your values, you damage the value you believe and it will directly affect your happiness and confidence.
The unpleasantness caused, will lead some people to distract their mind from actual problem. They fall for some short term happiness to overcome. But, until the root cause is identified and fixed, we have to face the same situations again and again. This is not the growth path. One should either align his/her lifestyle with his/her core values or at-least change the values to suit the lifestyle. The second one is tough but not impossible. At-least, in long run, they will find happiness.
How to identify my core values?
Brian Tracy suggests a method to identify what core values you like. Write an eulogy on what your friends and family will say about you. Its a good starting point and it will tell you what kind of life you want to live. For what, you want to remembered for and what is the legacy you want to leave. Think about it and what you get will be your desired core values. Now self access, what will your friends/family say about you now. The gap between these two is the journey you have to take.
The beginning of a journey
Once you identified your personal values, you can prioritise them in an order and the top most is the one that portrays you. That value should be the one you can even sacrifice your life for. Once the values are identified and prioritised, it is going to form your life. There should not any compromises.
Now you can start align your life based on the values. When you have to take the decisions, you can check which one align with your values. It is a long journey and once it is started you will feel happy when your life is in harmony with your values. You start to feel confident level and happiness raising.
This is the journey in which you will start to acquire what is needed for your life. The skills, things and even people who support your values will find you on their own (universe call it as Law of Attraction). You will witness that you are a speed learner when comes to acquiring the skills and you are surrounded by the people you want to live with.
The journey itself is the benefit
Another one important thing about it is, when your desired personal values start growing in you, you will feel the peace of mind. Our life is like a building. When you set the base as strong as possible, the building will be strong. Our personal values are the base of our life. When you set the values as strong as possible, the life will be unshakeable whatever happens. Because you trust your values, you build your self confidence. When your self confidence is high, your mind will be always calm. When you train your mind to be calm, you can take any decision and turn any situation to your advantage.
So the journey we begin with the values, doesn't have any end benefits, but you will start to reap the benefits when you go further each day.
Cautions
One important caution is there. When you choose a value, you make it as your highest priority. You should not leverage it or compromise it for any other thing. Universe has a law. It will reward you, when you embrace the value. But if you betray the value, you have to face the consequences. So you have to be very careful when choosing your personal values.
You may find yourself in cross roads sometime. When two of your values clashes, you have to choose the higher one. That is why we prioritised it. Changing the order in later point of time, will affect your life. Following the preset prioritisation is easy, but if you want to change it in later point of time, the change comes with its own price.
The End?
Building our life is a never ending journey. Our path may differs but the journey continues. Whether you build it on top of best values and live a wonderful life or on top of fear and live a mediocre life is in your hands. Choose your own personal values and make your lifestyle, instead of let others choose your life.
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