Uncovering Your Core Beliefs: Identify Your Personal Values

Uncover Your Personal Values: A Guide to Living Intentionally

In the pursuit of personal growth and self-improvement, one essential step often overlooked is identifying and articulating one's core values. These deeply ingrained beliefs serve as a foundation for character development, guiding decisions, and fostering resilience.

Dr. Jennifer Leigh Selig, a renowned psychologist, suggests several exercises to help individuals uncover their core values. One such method involves tapping into peak experiences, those moments of intense joy or fulfillment, as a means to discover what truly matters. Another exercise encourages the use of images that stir emotions to help uncover core values. Connecting with one's younger self and favourite personal classics can also reveal deeply embedded core values.

Healing from codependency and people-pleasing tendencies is possible, and understanding one's core values can be a crucial step in this process. Author James Clear provides a list of over 50 core values, cautioning individuals to focus on a handful that resonate most deeply. Meanwhile, author Karen Benke suggests asking oneself a series of questions to discover personal values.

Gary Chapman, another author, proposes using less-than-positive feelings and experiences to pinpoint core values. For instance, if anger arises from a situation, it might indicate a value being violated, such as honesty or respect.

Core values can act as resistance bands for emotions like anger, frustration, jealousy, and others that can become overwhelming. Knowing one's core values can help resist negative emotions and thoughts from controlling actions. They can serve as a source of internal motivation and resilience, helping individuals stand firm when declining less-important requests, invites, and activities.

Articulating one's values can provide a sense of purpose and reduce anxiety, depression, and stress. Living a rich, meaningful life starts with discovering core values, which help prioritize activities, relationships, and projects worthy of attention and intention.

Research suggests that maintaining a sense of purpose in midlife can have numerous benefits. This is why the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics lists five core values to help athletes thrive: Integrity, Respect, Responsibility, Sportsmanship, and Servant leadership.

To make the most of core values, make them tangible. List them, use them as phone or computer backgrounds, and paste them around home and workspace. Core values can guide decision making in difficult situations or ethical dilemmas, leading to wise, healthy decisions.

Moreover, the core values outlined in the teachings of major spiritual and ethical frameworks, such as Buddhism (mindfulness, compassion, right action) and Islam (justice, mercy, responsibility), emphasize essential virtues for personal growth and social well-being. These values form a comprehensive foundation for character development universally recognized across cultures and disciplines.

In conclusion, discovering and living by one's core values is a crucial step towards a rich, meaningful, and fulfilling life. Whether through introspection, questioning, or exploring experiences, the journey to uncovering these deeply ingrained beliefs is a personal and rewarding one.