how you value your life essay

Essay on My Values in Life

Introduction.

Personal values are qualities that one considers to be worthwhile and, as such, act as the driving force in their life. They take precedence over other qualities and therefore dictate the manner in which an individual may behave in particular instances. When it comes to my values in life, I have a few that I hold dear.

These values are a result of my upbringing, development, my principles, as well as my socialization and the culture around me. In this “my values in life” essay, I shall identify the core beliefs that I hold and how they influence my everyday choices, actions, and plans that I make.

My Values in Life

One of the educational values that are fundamental to me is achievement. This is a result of my belief that what defines me most as a person is my determination to succeed and my desire to make a positive contribution to society through my career. Achievement is, therefore, one of the values that are most important to me since, in today’s world, achievement and success are mostly tied together with educational success. As a result of this, I hold my educational exploits in high esteem since education is one of the avenues where one’s determination leads to quantifiable success.

I greatly value close relationships with my friends and constantly seek to cement the same. This is because good friends can assist one in achieving his/her goals in life and can sometimes even be closer than family. For this reason, I invest a lot of time and effort in my close friends. I make it a priority to be a part of the significant moments in my friends’ lives, such as their birthdays, wedding days, and even baby christening ceremonies. In addition to this, I always ensure that I inquire as to their well beings periodically.

Growth and personal development for me is a very fundamental value, and its importance in my life cannot be understated. It is my belief that my life is not worth much if I do not strive to constantly improve on my achievements as well as in becoming a better person. This value of personal growth and development greatly impacts my daily living, especially when establishing new relations. It is generally my rule that if a new relationship does not add any value to my life, then I should not waste my time exploring it.

One of the constant realities in human life is that we will always be surrounded by needy people. As such, on a social level, I always strive to give my services to the less fortunate. In my opinion, a life well lived is one that is lived in such a way that it makes a difference to someone else’s life. This is the philosophy with which I have led my life up to this point, and at all times, I try to make a difference in the lives of the people that surround me. Helping other people is, therefore, a value that I value not only in myself but also in other people.

While modern-day living has somewhat led to a degradation of the value of family from what it used to be in gone years, I still hold the value of family to be very important in my life. To me, one’s family members are the ones who will stand by you no matter the situation and encourage you through life’s troubles.

While I reckon that family may not always be supportive or as ideal as I envision it, in my experience, my family is closely knit and always stands up for me. I, therefore, always have my family in mind when making my decisions and consider how my actions will affect them. In addition, I try to seek guidance from members of the family who are more experienced than I am before making monumental decisions in my life.

It has been argued that honest men and women are a dying breed. This statement holds true in our capitalistic society, where profits and personal gains are the primary objectives. The means by which one achieves success is often overlooked, and as such, the ends justify the means.

Even in the midst of such an environment, I still hold honesty as one of my core values. This is mostly a result of my upbringing, whereby honesty was applauded and dishonesty shunned. Also, I have come to realize that when one achieves success through honesty, the level of satisfaction that comes with it is truly unrivaled by any other feeling.

Owing to my upbringing, I have a huge regard for religion. As such, one of my spiritual values is engaging myself in some religious organizations. While it is true that most of my religious values are a result of my upbringing, I have, over time, come to embrace them as my own and therefore make it my personal duty to be actively involved in my religious organization.

To me, this brings about a sense of balance and helps me be more reflective and appreciative in my life. My religious values impact my decision-making since I try not to make choices that are contrary to my religious beliefs.

In this paper, I have identified some of the values that I hold dear to me. I have also identified how these values impact the choices that I make as well as the actions that I take. From this deep exploration of my values, I have come to the realization that my values greatly dictate how I treat the people around me as well as how I prioritize matters. I believe that as a result of my values, I strive harder to achieve the things that I want in life, and as such, I am a better person as a result of them.

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How to write a sparkling value of life essay.

What Is The Value Of Life Essay?

The value of life essay is one that every student has to write at some stage. These essays highlight various reasons to appreciate one’s life. A values of life essay answers the ever-baffling question, “What are the things that make life beautiful and worth living?”

Since it is a common subject, it can be challenging to write an essay that impresses the reader. Here are all the tips that you need:

• Make Your Reader Think

This is the most important aspect of your value of life essays. Does it give your readers something to think about? The trick is to talk about something relatable. Start with a question that you know most people have in their minds.

For instance, start your essay on the value of life with a question like, “What is the relationship between suffering and the value of life? Why do we go through the things that we do?”

You can then work your way into making it a what is life worth essay. How suffering and struggles help you learn things that shape your understanding of life.

• Talk About Personal Life Changing Experiences

There is nothing stronger than personal experiences to move your readers. Most of us have had that one life-changing moment that almost jolts you into realizing what the true meaning of life is. These moments are powerful. They give you a lot to write about and share. Just when you are wonder “Is life priceless”, these moments show you why it truly is.

When you are basing your essay on life experiences, you can use a simple flow of thought:

• Start with a relatable question as mentioned before. The answers to the question should be related to the experience you want to talk about.
• Write about your perception of this question or thought before the experience and how it changed later on.
• Conclude your value of human life essay with a few lines about what you think are the really important things in life.
• The Value of People and Relationships

There is no doubt that it is our relationships with people that keep us going through the toughest times in life. It is for the people around us that we strive and struggle each day. All our efforts are centred on them. Sometimes it is about giving your family the best and other times it is just about making them feel proud of you.

Your essay can also highlight different reasons why we must value people to value life. You can even bring in negative experiences and stories about relationships gone sour and how they taught you the true meaning of life.

Using references to relationships makes your essays on the value of life relatable. As mentioned above, that is the best way to add more depth to your essay.

• Draw from History and Mythology

The easiest way to approach a what is value of life essay is to use references from folktales, history and mythology.

The Value Of Life Essay – Top Tips For You!

When you are taking this route, remember that the story itself is not the essay. You are only providing an example from these texts to highlight your points of view. Here are some ideas to incorporate existing stories, poems and more into the value of life essay you write:

Note down what you think is the true value of life. It could be people, emotions, life principals or just about anything that you wish to highlight. Then look for stories or references in history that reiterate the same ideas. Your essay must begin with your own stance, with the story or example woven into it seamlessly.

Your essay can take one of the above approaches or can become a combination of all of them. The most important thing is to ensure that you give your readers some food for thought.

Get in touch with us today to get writing help to complete your assignment. Our experts will guide you through your essay to ensure that you have a final product that gets you great grades.

Personal Growth: Your Values, Your Life

Are you living your life in accordance with your values.

Posted May 7, 2012 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

Your values form the foundation of your life. They dictate the choices you make and determine the direction that your life takes. Your values will influence your decisions related to your relationships, career , and other activities you engage in.

Yet despite this importance, few people choose their values. Instead, they simply adopt the values of their parents and the dominant values of society. In all likelihood, the values that you internalized as a child remain with you through adulthood (yes, in some cases, people reject the values of their upbringings). Unfortunately, these values may also have created a life that is carrying you down a path that is not the direction you want to go.

What values were you raised with? What values are you presently living in accordance with? Are they the same or different? Do your values bring you happiness ? These are essential questions that you must ask if you are to find meaning, happiness, success, and connection in your life.

Yet, finding the answers to these questions is a challenge—and changing them in a way that will lead to fulfillment is an even greater challenge.

Deconstructing Your Values

To truly understand what values you possess and live by, you must deconstruct them until you are able to clearly see what exactly you value and why you hold those values. Looking openly and honestly at the way you were raised is the first step in identifying the values that you instilled growing up.

What did your parents value, and what values did they impress upon you—in regards to achievement, wealth, education , religion, status, independence, or appearance? Think back to your childhood and ask yourself several questions. What values were emphasized in the way your parents lived their lives? What values were stressed in your family? What values were reflected in the way you were rewarded or punished?

For example, were you rewarded for being highly ranked in your high school class and for winning in sports, or were you rewarded for giving your best effort and for helping others? You might even ask your parents to reflect back on your childhood to see what they perceived their values to be and what values they wanted to emphasize in your upbringing.

Your next step in the deconstruction process involves looking at your present life and the values your life reflects. In responding to these questions, you should ask yourself what values underlie your answers. What do you do for a living—are you a corporate employee, a business owner, a teacher, salesperson, caterer, or social worker?

A common question that people in social gathering ask is, what do you do for a living? Periodically, I have seen people get rather defensive in response to this question. They say, “Who cares what I do? What I do is not who I am.” I would suggest otherwise, at least to some degree. Assuming people have choices in the career paths they take, which one they choose reflects who they are and what they value.

For example, though it's a bit of a generalization, it is probably safe to say that someone who becomes an investment banker has different values than someone who becomes an elementary school teacher. What those underlying values might be may vary, but one might assume that the investment banker values money, while the teacher values education and helping children.

Where do you live—do you live in a high-rise apartment in a city, in the suburbs, or in the country—and what values led you there? What activities do you engage in most—cultural, physical, religious, political, social—and what values are reflected in those activities? What do you talk about mostly— politics , religion, the economy, other people—and what does that tell you about your values?

Finally, perhaps the most telling question reflecting what you value is: What do you spend your money on—a home, cars, travel, clothing, education, art, charity? Because money is a limited resource for most people, they will use their money in ways that they value most. Above anything else, where people spend their hard-earned money says the most about their values.

You can then ask yourself whether your current values are the same as those you grew up with. Have you gone through a period of examination and reconsideration? Have you consciously chosen to discard some values from your upbringing and adopt new ones?

My experience with people who live unsatisfying lives is that the values they grew up with mostly weren’t unhealthy and that their present values haven’t changed since childhood. They never questioned their values. Instead, they simply bought into them early in their lives and created their life around those values. In contrast, fulfilled people tended to grow up with life-affirming values or had a “crisis of conscience ” in early adulthood that caused them to re-evaluate and modify their values.

Now that you have deconstructed your life and have a clear idea of what you value, you can see the values upon which you have created your life. You can see whether those values contribute to your dissatisfaction or bring you happiness. Look at which aspects of your life contribute to your unhappiness—your career, marriage , lifestyle—and ask yourself what values underlie those parts of your life.

For example, if your career in the business world makes you unhappy—no judgment intended, but many of my clients happen to come from corporate life—you need to ask yourself what values you have held that led you to a career in business and how those values presently cause you to be an unhappy success.

Popular Culture and Values

A recurring theme that runs throughout my work is that inadvertently buying into the values that predominate popular culture, for example, winning, status, power, appearance, and conspicuous consumption, is a leading cause of life dissatisfaction. The popular culture in America today—as reflected in our various media—no longer has the time, attention span, or energy to devote to weighty and deep issues such as values. It is much easier to focus on the superficial “things” in our culture. Thus, the pursuit of wealth and material goods has become the dominant “value” in much of our society, in the mistaken belief that these values will bring people happiness.

One of the most powerful ways in which this “value” was impressed on you was in how you learned to define success. Popular culture typically defines success winning, wealth, status, physical appearance, and popularity—the more money and power you have and the more attractive and popular you are, the more successful you would be. Growing up with these definitions, success was largely unattainable for most people.

At the same time, our culture made losing even more intolerable to contemplate—being poor, powerless, unattractive, and unpopular is simply unacceptable. With these restrictive definitions, you may have believed, like so many others, that you were caught in the untenable situation of having little opportunity for success and great chance for failure .

Blindly having accepted society’s narrow definitions of success and failure takes away your power to decide how you wish to define them. By buying into popular culture’s limiting definitions of success and failure rather than choosing definitions based on your own values, you can’t become truly successful and happy because you are forced down a path that is, for most people, impossible to attain and that is not truly yours. You may become successful in the eyes of society, but you probably won’t feel like a success yourself. And this path certainly won’t bring you meaning, happiness, or real success in your life.

Jim Taylor, Ph.D. , teaches at the University of San Francisco.

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29 Of The Most Important Values To Live By

What values are important to a life well lived?

What do you want to be known for?

What qualities do you admire in others and work to cultivate in yourself?

And how do those qualities reflect your core beliefs?

Your life values are those that, once you identify them, help you with decision-making and provide the building blocks for your character — specifically the one you want to have.

For example, if one of your top values in life is courage, you’ll likely seek out new challenges so you can act in spite of the fear that comes when you’re faced with the possibility of failure or rejection.

And if forgiveness has recently become one of your values to live by, you’ll want to remind yourself of your new commitment when you’re about to spend time with someone who has hurt you in the past .

What Are Values in Life?

Why are values in life important, 2. kindness, 3. patience, 4. integrity, 5. gratitude / appreciation, 6. forgiveness, 9. listening, 10. respect, 11. self-giving, 13. authenticity , 14. balance, 15. community , 16. compassion , 17. creativity , 18. generosity , 19. justice , 20. learning, 21. freedom, 22. loyalty , 23. openness, 24. prudence , 25. resilience, 26. responsibility, 27. self-respect , 28. spirituality, 29. wisdom .

But what is the point of identifying your values, and how do they contribute to your growth and happiness?

To answer this question, we’re exploring 29 of the most important values in life and showing how they influence everything you do.

But before we do that, it makes sense to explain what values are in the first place.

Values are about what you consider important to the life you want to live. They inform your priorities and, when practiced consistently, form the character you want to have.

They’re rooted in your core beliefs about what makes for a life well-lived and about the behavior you want to model for others (including children if you have them).

Look at them as the guideposts for your actions and decisions — the themes around which you want to design your life based on the type of person you aspire to be.

You may inherit many of your life values from your parents or from societal expectations. But it's up to you to prioritize these values and discern how you'll honor and act on them daily.

Shared values are the basis for a common code – a value-based compass – that speeds up decision-making and unites those who share that code.

By expressing those values, the common code articulates different aspects of the shared mission and becomes the key motivator for those who share it.

Defining your core values gives you parameters for actions and decisions that can keep you out of trouble, improve your confidence and self-esteem, and further your life goals.

Without them, you are rudderless and reactive to the challenges and choices life presents to you.

You can take each of the following examples of values in life to create a code or motto that motivates you to practice that value every day, so it will become second nature when it’s most needed.

29 Most Important Values To Life By

Courage is about doing what you believe needs to be done — not in the absence of fear but in spite of it.

You might feel disinclined to offer a genuine apology out of fear that the other will reject it, but courage will help you apologize anyway because it’s the right thing to do out of respect for the one you hurt or offended. Whether they accept your apology or not is their business.

Courage requires a step outside of your comfort zone. If you have no fear, you don’t need courage, but when something you know you have to do makes you feel sick inside, courage is what makes you do that thing anyway.

Courage code (or motto): “I do what needs to be done, even when fear comes along for the ride.”

Kindness is about treating others the way you want to be treated.

It’s more than just holding your tongue when you’re tempted to say something unkind; kindness looks for ways to make life better for others. It takes delight in lifting others up and reminding them they’re not alone, invisible, or insignificant.

Kindness and compassion are closely related; the latter involves the readiness to see a situation from someone else’s perspective and to give them the benefit of the doubt. It also takes into consideration what the other person has gone through and chooses to respond with kindness rather than anger or vengefulness.

Both demonstrate at least a subliminal appreciation for the connectedness of all living beings; when you show kindness and compassion to others, you benefit (at least) as much as they do.

Kindness to yourself is also important, and it’s the basis for self-care. Don’t forget to be as kind to yourself as you want others to be.

Schedule time each day for reasonable and thoughtful self-care , and practice mindfulness to be fully present for it. In practicing kindness to yourself, you also make yourself better able to render kindness to others.

Kindness code: “I treat others as I want to be treated — with thoughtfulness, patience, and respect.”

When someone is pushing your buttons, taking your time or attention away from something you want to finish, or making your life harder in some way, you practice patience by putting yourself in the others’ shoes, trying to see the situation from their perspective, and responding with kindness and respect.

No one wants to be treated like an inconvenience or a burden, and sometimes your priorities have to change to make room for something (or someone) more important or more likely to help you grow.

Patience code: “No matter how I feel when someone interrupts me or gets in my way, I always treat them with the same patience I hope for from others when necessity compels me to interrupt them or get in their way.”

Integrity is about acting and speaking in accordance with your beliefs.

If you say one thing but do the opposite, witnesses to this contradiction aren’t likely to recognize you as a person of integrity. They’re more likely to accuse you of hypocrisy.

Though you may not be fully conscious of the disagreement between your words and actions, if you believe one thing but your actions profess a contradictory belief, you might feel a growing unease and unhappiness with the way you’re acting.

It doesn’t feel right. And you’re faced with a choice: either change your belief, or change your actions.

Integrity code: “What I believe is made clear by what I say and do.”

When gratitude is a core belief, you make time for it every day. You prioritize both feeling gratitude and expressing it — in your thoughts, in the words you speak or write, and in your attitude and actions.

You might create the habit of writing a daily gratitude list. And if you recognize the importance of emotion to the fullest experience of gratitude, you’ll likewise place a high value on a daily mindfulness practice.

Showing appreciation to others for their words and actions is also essential to making this a core value. Just as you appreciate it when others thank you for a job well done, for a thoughtful gift, or for rendering the help they needed, others appreciate that recognition too.

And far too often, we act as though others must already know how much we appreciate them. Don’t assume that they do; make sure of it.

Gratitude code: “In the morning, throughout the day, and in the evening, I feel and express gratitude for the good things in my life. And I make sure everyone who has done something good for me knows I appreciate them for it.”

Forgiveness is about letting go of anger and resentment toward those who have hurt or offended you.

You’re not saying what they did was okay or not a big deal; you’re acknowledging that what they did was hurtful but choosing to forgive them in order to be free of the anger and resentment (toward them) that are making you miserable.

In forgiving them, you take back your power and choose happiness and peace of soul for yourself, even if the one who hurt you has never shown the slightest hint of remorse.

Everyone has a capacity for forgiveness — just as everyone has the capacity to hurt others with their words and actions — but not everyone has cultivated a habit of forgiveness.

We learn to be more forgiving by forgiving more. If you write morning pages, add a short list of people you forgive, adding what you forgive them for and something you appreciate about each person.

Forgiveness code: “I forgive those who have hurt me, because I know I’ve made mistakes and hurt people, too, and I want to be free of this anger and resentment. I choose freedom, and I choose to genuinely want (and work for) the good of those who’ve hurt me.”

Love sees the good in everyone, and it wants good things for them. You may not always know what’s best for someone else, but if you love them, you want their ultimate happiness, and you want to see them grow.

You recognize that no one reaches adulthood with their character fixed and unchangeable; we’re all a work in progress. Things your 20-year-old self would say might appall your 40-year-old self. It’s part of being human if you’re a human that continues to grow.

Did someone you love do terrible things in their 20’s or 30’s — things they would never do now (in their mid-40’s)?

Forgive them for not knowing better before they learned whatever stopped them from doing those terrible things. And forgive yourself for not knowing that human beings are all capable of terrible things — just as we’re also capable of growth.

When you love someone, you don’t base that love on the kind of person they were ten or twenty years ago, or on the person you hope they become or that you wish they were. Your love tells them, “You are enough — just as you are today.”

You recognize that their beliefs and behavior may change as they grow, but since your love doesn’t depend on what they believe or on whether you agree on everything, your love doesn’t lessen with time and with the challenges those changes bring.

Love code: “I love with both passion and understanding; real love is wide awake.”

If growth is one of your core values, you look for opportunities to grow as a person and to help others grow, too.

You take the time to identify your values and your overall mission , so you can live in accordance with it and become more and more the person you have to be in order to fulfill your mission.

You know that growth isn’t a destination but a process, and you want to enjoy that process and help others to enjoy their own.

You might take an interest in coaching or in group growth opportunities, where members support and encourage each other. You recognize true and wholehearted collaboration as an asset and a growth facilitator, and you prioritize growth over comfort and security.

Real growth might mean shaking things up at home or at work, but the more committed you are to your growth and to that of those you care about, the less you mind rocking the boat.

Growth code: “Every day, I’m growing more into the person I want to be.”

If active listening is a core value for you, you value others’ input and invest time and energy in learning how to see things from their perspectives.

So, it makes sense that when someone wants to tell you something, you give them your full attention and thoughtfully consider their words.

Whereas before, you felt tense with the expectation of having to defend your beliefs against an unfriendly viewpoint, you’ve learned (through practice) to listen with genuine openness rather than an ego-centric fear of being proven wrong.

You recognize that you don’t know everything, and you don’t see even familiar things from every angle, so you appreciate it when others share their perspectives. And your body language, as well as your feedback, shows them you’re listening and that you care about what they have to say.

Listening code: “I listen to others with my full attention, so I can learn from them and show thoughtful consideration for their ideas.”

If you want to be known for treating all human (or living) beings with respect, you probably base that respect on something more fundamental than someone’s rank or social status.

Otherwise, why would you consider it a priority to treat all humans with equal respect — regardless of their age, income, or background?

Or why would you put more energy into making sure the least exalted among you is treated with respect than into making sure others treat you with the same consideration?

It doesn’t mean you don’t consider yourself equally worthy of respect, but you find it easy to put yourself in other people’s shoes, so in making sure they feel respected, you feel more respected, too.

Respect code: “I treat all living beings with the same respect with which I like to be treated.”

Another word for self-giving is sacrifice, but self-giving has a more positive connotation. Essentially, you’re giving of yourself — your time, your attention, your energy, your treasure, your abilities — to help or enrich another.

Real love doesn’t hesitate to give of itself until it hurts, knowing that the momentary pain is nothing compared to the benefit won by that self-giving.

The word “selfless” implies that someone has given so much of themselves, they’ve reserved nothing for their own use or enjoyment, but in giving yourself — if you give out of love — your joy is in what that gift brings to others.

Self-giving can be overdone but only when the motive is pride (or insecurity) rather than love.

Self-giving code: “I give of myself to others not only to connect with them but to acknowledge our connectedness. What I give to them, I also receive.”

You may be used to talking about vision in the context of a specific person’s “vision for the future,” but the larger sense of vision is not something that you own or that comes from you; it comes through you and inspires you and others.

Because the larger vision isn't confined to your ego, the power of that vision is free to attract, illuminate, and flow through you.

Your vision is connected to one that is infinite and uncontainable — you do not exist to serve yourself at the expense of others; you exist to cooperate with others in the creation of a community that benefits all living creatures.

Your personal vision – what you see as your response to the larger vision — informs your personal mission and the process by which you live out that mission.

It’s not about the lifestyle you want or the things you’ll have when you’re “successful.” It has more to do with allowing yourself to be led by the greater vision through your personal links to it — your intuition and inner wisdom.

Vision code: “I live according to a vision guided by my inner wisdom and judgment.”

Authenticity is being truthful about who you are. It means speaking your truth, openly and honestly — not hiding for fear of criticism or judgment, which will come anyway. 

As an authentic person, you don’t expect or need to be liked by everyone. You accept that some will have a problem with you and find it easy to judge you for what you reveal yourself. Some will feel affronted by your “out there-ness.”  

That doesn’t stop you from living your life as you choose to, nor does it stop you from sharing some of what you’ve learned from your own mistakes. You put it out there, trusting that at least one reader will feel less alone because of it. 

It’s a gamble you’re willing to make. You don’t see the point in pretending to be someone you’re not or hiding who you are. You know some will see your faults more easily and focus on them, but their opinions aren’t your responsibility — or your business. 

And there’s freedom in recognizing that. 

Authenticity code: “I live and speak my truth, choosing not to fear criticism or judgment.” 

It’s not easy to balance work, relationships, and self-care. But you know from experience how important it is to do so. 

It’s too easy to sideline self-care to get more done — or to put off date nights with your partner so you can impress the boss and (possibly) score that pay-raise or promotion. Do it once, and it’s even easier to do it again. And again. Etcetera. 

This is not the way to live, though, and you know it. So, you take note of where you are on your priority list when you review your actions for the day. You also take note of how much time you’ve invested in your relationships . You see the slope for what it is. 

Then, you make some adjustments. You start building new habits to prioritize daily self-care and a daily investment in your relationships. And contrary to your fears, you don’t run out of time for work. You still get things done. 

And you even enjoy it more than you used to. Because balance. 

Balance code: “When my priorities are in the right order, balance happens.”

As a community-minded person, while you’re not responsible for how other people might feel about you or your actions, you choose to consider the impact of your choices on the people around you. You value their safety and well-being and have goodwill toward them. 

You know your behavior toward those in your community can affect them in various ways, and you want that effect to be as positive as possible. You can’t control what others think of you, but you can control what you say and what actions you take. 

When you give up your seat to someone who looks tired and stressed, you step outside yourself to offer comfort or silent empathy to another. When you quietly disregard someone else’s petty criticism, you choose a better way forward for you both. 

And whether you have an active and visible presence in the community or you prefer to work behind the scenes, you make it a priority to leave it better off than you found it. 

Community code: “I value all members of my community, whatever their beliefs or backgrounds.”  

Compassion is what helps you overcome the impulse to judge another harshly or to find fault with them — choosing to see the good, even when it’s hidden. 

You put yourself in their shoes to see the situation from a different perspective. You’re open to what they have to say and slow to assume they’re in the wrong. 

You want to understand them more than you want to be right. 

This doesn’t obligate you to expose yourself to the negativity and judgment of others. You might temporarily block someone’s access to you to protect your headspace and well-being. But you don’t rule out the possibility of reconciliation and growth. 

You want to see others — even those who’ve hurt you — happy and growing. Ultimately, what they think of you doesn’t matter. And it’s not your business. 

You let go of the hurt and send them warm, compassionate thoughts. Because you’re aware of your own faults. And you want everyone to get out of this life in better shape. 

Compassion code: “I make compassion the foundation of my behavior and thoughts toward others.”

You are a creator. As such, you have both the potential and the innate drive to create things that make lives better (including your own). 

No matter how you express this impulse — through writing, art, craftsmanship, chemistry, robotics, etc. — you put something of yourself into every creation. And from that something, other things grow. You bear a living fingerprint, and you leave your own. 

So, it makes sense for creativity to be one of your key values, not just because others see you as “a creative sort” but because the creative impulse is your birthright, and you don’t consider a life well-lived that doesn’t honor that impulse and explore its potential. 

You don’t wait for the day to bring you something new; you take what you have and create something. And being a social creature (more or less), you enjoy creating things you know other people will enjoy. 

Creativity code: “I am a creator with a unique genius all my own, which I use every day.”

Generosity is a willingness to share your blessings with those who have less. It’s easy enough to share with people you know and like; it’s another thing to share with those you don’t get along with or who seem to think you owe them what you have. 

The thing is, no one has a right to hoard resources, and it makes no sense when one person can only enjoy so much. You would rather share what you have so that fewer people will feel the pain of hunger and lack. Fewer will feel neglected, forgotten, or invisible. 

You know generosity is about more than donating money or spending a bit more to support a worthy cause. A truly generous spirit is also quick to share intangible blessings: kindness, patience, goodwill, understanding, and forgiveness. 

You don’t keep treasure of any kind locked up and of no use to anyone while people around you are starving or in pain. You put yourself in their place and share what you have to make their lives better. 

Otherwise, what’s the point of having more than enough? 

Generosity code: “I share my wealth with those who have less and we all benefit.” 

Justice — to be worthy of the name — must apply equally to all people, regardless of their race, gender identity, income, age, or sexual orientation. You’ve seen injustice, and you share the anger of those who’ve suffered it. 

Justice is a driving force for you because you see it denied to so many because their race or gender isn’t represented or respected by those in power. You’ll do what you can to correct that. 

Maybe you’ve chosen a career that allows you to fight to obtain justice for the under-served. Or maybe you’ll use your creative talent or time or other resources to further causes for justice. 

Whatever you do, it’s not to score points or to be seen. It’s to look these fellow human beings in the eye and let them know you see them and want what they want. 

Because they have as much right to justice as anyone else. 

Justice code: “I do what I can to fight injustice wherever I see it. I am my brother’s keeper.”

You’re a big believer in the value of always learning. As an independent scholar, you look for ways to learn about the things that interest you. And you have plenty of resources to choose from: books, video documentaries, websites, podcasts , TED talks, etc. 

You’re so hungry for learning that you might find it hard to spend your reading time on fiction — though you do love a good story. It’s just that there are so many things you want to learn more about, and you have so little time (comparatively) to sit and relax with a book. 

You have so many interests that it’s hard to stay focused on just one. And you love to find connections between seemingly disparate ideas and disciplines. 

The more you learn, the more you realize how little you know and how much more there is to learn, which excites you. You know you’ll never run out of things to learn. And it will never get boring. 

Learning code: “I aim not to become an expert but to always be learning.” 

Viktor Frankl called the last of human freedoms the freedom “to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” Another way to describe this is by exercising your responsibility for your own thoughts and feelings. 

You choose how to feel about something, just as you choose how to act. 

That inner freedom is what you value more than any flag or statue or anthem. Because no one can take that away from you. It’s perfectly understandable also to cherish the outward freedoms you enjoy. But if you lost them , you would not also lose yourself. 

So, while you will always speak up against injustice and against tyranny (as well you should), you also recognize that, if you were to lose the advantages you now enjoy — and any of us could — you would not live as though you had no freedom at all. 

You can always decide how you will react. You know that freedom without responsibility is a recipe for chaos. And responsibility without freedom is impossible. They depend on each other. 

Freedom code: “I exercise my freedom to choose how I react, how I feel, and what I do.”  

Loyalty implies a connection or implicit agreement between two people. When you’re loyal to someone, they hold a special place in your life. They take priority over others. Their concerns have more weight with you. 

You probably hope to have the same effect on the people you love. You hope you hold a special place in their lives and that, if you needed them, they’d show up for you. 

Other words that come to mind in connection with loyalty are faithfulness, dependability, trustworthiness, allegiance, and attachment. When you mull over these words, certain people come to the forefront. And you hope the loyalty is mutual. 

You feel the effects of your loyalty toward others, mainly because of how your loyalty-inspired actions affect you and the people around you. In the same way, other people’s loyalty or lack of loyalty toward you has an effect. 

As long as the loyalty (or lack thereof) doesn’t sabotage anyone’s best interest, the effects are generally good. You see the potential dark side of loyalty — when it takes priority over the best interests of those involved — and you keep it in mind. 

Loyalty code: “I value loyalty that does good to everyone connected with it.” 

You’re open to new people and new experiences. From the moment you heard the words, “I’ll try (just about) anything once,” you made it your mantra and repeated it in your mind whenever you faced something new: 

• A new job opportunity
• A new kind of food or drink
• A new place for a vacation or roadtrip
• A new person with new ideas 
• A new clothing or shoe style

It’s not that you necessarily crave novelty, but you do want to be open to considering different viewpoints, perspectives, and ideas. As with compassion, you want to understand them more than you want to be right. 

You know your mind hasn’t comprehended everything there is to comprehend. You know there’s always more to learn. And just as you value continual learning, you value openness and the curiosity that supports it. 

Maybe there’s really “nothing new under the sun,” but it’s enough that it’s new for you. 

Openness code: “I welcome new experiences, new ideas, and new people.” 

Generally speaking, prudence is doing or saying the right thing at the right time in the right way. You can have great timing and get it wrong anyway. You can also do the right thing in the right way and still end up with regrets. 

Prudence looks at the bigger picture and the deeper consequences of your words and actions. You value prudence because, much as you want to do something , you know sometimes the situation calls for patience and circumspection. 

You know the value of prudence has nothing to do with prudishness. And you don’t confuse real prudence with the paralysis that comes from obsessing over all the things that could go wrong. Prudence contains wisdom — not paranoia. 

And it has nothing to do with fake purity or self-righteousness. 

The best leaders cultivate prudence to better serve those they lead. The best teachers cultivate prudence to encourage and challenge their students in the most effective way. The best therapists value prudence because it helps them make the most of their intuition.

Prudence is the ultimate superpower.  

Prudence code: “I’m cultivating prudence to make the best possible impact on every life I touch.” 

Resilience is the ability to recover from and adapt to change or misfortune. In other words, when things go bad, you find a way to pivot and keep moving forward. Life knocks you down, and you get back up — every time. 

You don’t pat yourself on the back for it. You do it because ya gotta. Quitting is just waiting to die. And you want more out of life than an extended hospice stay. 

If there’s a way to get back up and get moving again, you’ll find it because you don’t see any acceptable alternatives. So, even if you’d like to stop existing for an hour or so (just to catch a break), you look at your options and grab onto something. 

It doesn’t have to be something you can hold onto for long. You don’t look at each getting up as proof you can’t be kept down for long. Life is moment to moment. You haven’t undergone every test, and this getting back up is your answer to only one of them.

But the more you respond to knock-downs by getting back up, the more automatic it becomes. 

Resilience code: “I cultivate resilience by looking for the lesson in every challenge.”

You take responsibility for your words and actions and how they impact your life and the lives of others. When you’ve hurt someone, you do what you can to make amends. You’re not too proud to apologize when you know you’re in the wrong. 

On the other hand, you do not take responsibility for the way others feel about you. You do nothing to offend others deliberately, and if you’re aware that a certain expression gives offense, you respect others enough to apologize and abandon that expression for good. 

You address others with their proper pronouns and treat them with the same respect you hope to receive. When you fail in this, you apologize and strive to do better. 

But while you own your own feelings and don’t blame them on others, you don’t own the feelings others might blame on you. 

• Owning: “When you said that, I felt [insert feeling here].”
• Blaming: “When you said that, you made me feel [insert feeling here].” 

Much as you might enjoy bringing a smile to people’s faces, you know you’re not responsible for someone else’s feelings, just as no one else is responsible for yours. 

Responsibility code: “I take responsibility for my own words, actions, and feelings.” 

You know the value of self-respect because you’ve seen the consequences for those who have none. And you’ve seen how easy it is to deprioritize yourself when so many other priorities crowd your plate. 

• You have to keep earning, so you can pay the bills.
• You have to help the youngest with school work. 
• You have to run errands to buy food, etc. 
• You have to attend those weekly appointments and/or meetings. 

The unspoken words at the end of each of those “You have to” statements is the dreaded “or else…” And the imagined consequences seem far worse than simply postponing a shower so you can get something finished in time for one of those appointments. 

You know how it feels: scrambling to take care of everything and everyone but yourself. 

So, you’ve committed to practicing daily self-care as an affirmation of self-love and self-respect. You deserve to be cared for as much as anyone else. 

Self-care is key to creating balance in your life. When you prioritize self-respect, other things tend to fall into place. 

Self-Respect code: “I show self-respect in my commitment to daily self-care and self-expression.” 

What is spirituality, if not a healthy respect for the unseen guides and guardians that watch over us and take an interest in our personal development? You don’t have to be religious to be spiritual or to make room in your daily life for spirituality. 

Your connection to this value is related to your openness and commitment to learning. You know you don’t know everything. And there’s plenty you don’t see that you don’t understand. But you’d like to understand it better. 

You believe exploring your spirituality with trustworthy guides helps you become more and more the person you want to be. You’ll understand your own potential and personality better.

And the better you know yourself, the less you’ll feel the need to conform to someone else’s idea of what you should be or what you should be doing. 

Spirituality isn’t about being less than a god or being obedient to religious authority. It’s exploring the needs and potential of your own spirit and its relation to others. 

Spirituality code: “I tend to my spiritual needs and concerns as part of my daily self-care.”

You’ve learned plenty from your years of school, but one of the most important lessons taught you the importance of wisdom — far and above the value of raw intelligence. 

Wisdom is the ability to apply what you know (knowledge) — along with your intelligence — to make the right choices. Ultimately, you know that has more to do with your happiness than your IQ or even your EQ (emotional intelligence). 

Wisdom can guide you to make better use of everything you have, including your money, talents and skills, and time. 

Wisdom looks beyond what’s easy or what feels urgent. It seeks balance and growth. Neither is possible when you take yourself or your relationships off the priority list or when you put other things ahead of them. 

Real wisdom knows what burnout is and how you get there. And wisdom, like prudence, is about the bigger picture. 

Wisdom is about you seeing the most important thing and focusing on that. 

Wisdom code: “I cultivate wisdom to make better choices, to know and heal myself, and to grow.”

More Related Articles:

Excellence Redefined: The 15 Essential Traits of a High-Value Man

19 Questions to Ask Yourself To Know If You Really Like A Guy Or Just Want The Attention

Help Children Understand Their Emotions With These 11 Feelings Charts For Kids

Final Thoughts

Now, it’s your turn.

What are your values? And what will you do today to put one (or more) of them into practice?

One small action today makes more of a difference than you probably realize.

Think of each small action as a seed you plant that, as long as you nurture it along the way, grows into a healthy tree with roots and branches, shedding seeds of its own.

Your values are the life in every seed you plant. Choose the best values, and make them part of your blueprint for personal growth.

And may your courage and passion for growth influence everything you do today.

1 thought on “29 Of The Most Important Values To Live By”

Thank you for this. The list is quite comprehensive and exhausts most values that are regarded as important.

The value that spoke out to me is Learning. We constantly need to learn. It’s the one thing that’s constant in life apart from change.

Extremely grateful for this article.

Comments are closed.

Essays About Values: 5 Essay Examples Plus 10 Prompts

Similar to how our values guide us, let this guide with essays about values and writing prompts help you write your essay.

Values are the core principles that guide the actions we take and the choices we make. They are the cornerstones of our identity. On a community or organizational level, values are the moral code that every member must embrace to live harmoniously and work together towards shared goals. 

We acquire our values from different sources such as parents, mentors, friends, cultures, and experiences. All of these build on one another — some rejected as we see fit — for us to form our perception of our values and what will lead us to a happy and fulfilled life.

5 Essay Examples

1. what today’s classrooms can learn from ancient cultures by linda flanagan, 2. stand out to your hiring panel with a personal value statement by maggie wooll, 3. make your values mean something by patrick m. lencioni, 4. how greed outstripped need by beth azar, 5. a shift in american family values is fueling estrangement by joshua coleman, 1. my core values, 2. how my upbringing shaped my values, 3. values of today’s youth, 4. values of a good friend, 5. an experience that shaped your values, 6. remembering our values when innovating, 7. important values of school culture, 8. books that influenced your values, 9. religious faith and moral values, 10. schwartz’s theory of basic values.

“Connectedness is another core value among Maya families, and teachers seek to cultivate it… While many American teachers also value relationships with their students, that effort is undermined by the competitive environment seen in many Western classrooms.”

Ancient communities keep their traditions and values of a hands-off approach to raising their kids. They also preserve their hunter-gatherer mindsets and others that help their kids gain patience, initiative, a sense of connectedness, and other qualities that make a helpful child.

“How do you align with the company’s mission and add to its culture? Because it contains such vital information, your personal value statement should stand out on your resume or in your application package.”

Want to rise above other candidates in the jobs market? Then always highlight your value statement. A personal value statement should be short but still, capture the aspirations and values of the company. The essay provides an example of a captivating value statement and tips for crafting one.

“Values can set a company apart from the competition by clarifying its identity and serving as a rallying point for employees. But coming up with strong values—and sticking to them—requires real guts.”

Along with the mission and vision, clear values should dictate a company’s strategic goals. However, several CEOs still needed help to grasp organizational values fully. The essay offers a direction in setting these values and impresses on readers the necessity to preserve them at all costs. 

“‘He compared the values held by people in countries with more competitive forms of capitalism with the values of folks in countries that have a more cooperative style of capitalism… These countries rely more on strategic cooperation… rather than relying mostly on free-market competition as the United States does.”

The form of capitalism we have created today has shaped our high value for material happiness. In this process, psychologists said we have allowed our moral and ethical values to drift away from us for greed to take over. You can also check out these essays about utopia .

“From the adult child’s perspective, there might be much to gain from an estrangement: the liberation from those perceived as hurtful or oppressive, the claiming of authority in a relationship, and the sense of control over which people to keep in one’s life. For the mother or father, there is little benefit when their child cuts off contact.”

It is most challenging when the bonds between parent and child weaken in later years. Psychologists have been navigating this problem among modern families, which is not an easy conflict to resolve. It requires both parties to give their best in humbling themselves and understanding their loved ones, no matter how divergent their values are. 

10 Writing  Prompts On Essays About Values

For this topic prompt, contemplate your non-negotiable core values and why you strive to observe them at all costs. For example, you might value honesty and integrity above all else. Expound on why cultivating fundamental values leads to a happy and meaningful life. Finally, ponder other values you would like to gain for your future self. Write down how you have been practicing to adopt these aspired values. 

Many of our values may have been instilled in us during childhood. This essay discusses the essential values you gained from your parents or teachers while growing up. Expound on their importance in helping you flourish in your adult years. Then, offer recommendations on what households, schools, or communities can do to ensure that more young people adopt these values.

Is today’s youth lacking essential values, or is there simply a shift in what values generations uphold? Strive to answer this and write down the healthy values that are emerging and dying. Then think of ways society can preserve healthy values while doing away with bad ones. Of course, this change will always start at home, so also encourage parents, as role models, to be mindful of their words, actions and behavior.  

The greatest gift in life is friendship. In this essay, enumerate the top values a friend should have. You may use your best friend as an example. Then, cite the best traits your best friend has that have influenced you to be a better version of yourself. Finally, expound on how these values can effectively sustain a healthy friendship in the long term. 

We all have that one defining experience that has forever changed how we see life and the values we hold dear. Describe yours through storytelling with the help of our storytelling guide . This experience may involve a decision, a conversation you had with someone, or a speech you heard at an event.  

With today’s innovation, scientists can make positive changes happen. But can we truly exercise our values when we fiddle with new technologies whose full extent of positive and adverse effects we do not yet understand such as AI? Contemplate this question and look into existing regulations on how we curb the creation or use of technologies that go against our values. Finally, assess these rules’ effectiveness and other options society has. 

Highlight a school’s role in honing a person’s values. Then, look into the different aspects of your school’s culture. Identify which best practices distinct in your school are helping students develop their values. You could consider whether your teachers exhibit themselves as admirable role models or specific parts of the curriculum that help you build good character. 

In this essay, recommend your readers to pick up your favorite books, particularly those that served as pathways to enlightening insights and values. To start, provide a summary of the book’s story. It would be better if you could do so without revealing too much to avoid spoiling your readers’ experience. Then, elaborate on how you have applied the values you learned from the book.

For many, religious faith is the underlying reason for their values. For this prompt, explore further the inextricable links between religion and values. If you identify with a certain religion, share your thoughts on the values your sector subscribes to. You can also tread the more controversial path on the conflicts of religious values with socially accepted beliefs or practices, such as abortion. 

Dive deeper into the ten universal values that social psychologist Shalom Schwartz came up with: power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security. Look into their connections and conflicts against each other. Then, pick your favorite value and explain how you relate to it the most. Also, find if value conflicts within you, as theorized by Schwartz.

Make sure to check out our round-up of the best essay checkers . If you want to use the latest grammar software, read our guide on using an AI grammar checker .

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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How to Focus on Your Values in Your Personal Statement

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by CEG Essay Specialist Kaila Barber in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

What’s Covered: 

Identifying your own values, demonstrate your values with examples.

• Reflecting on Your Experiences

It’s important to keep in mind what your reader is hoping to learn from your personal statement. The statement is an opportunity to reflect on your experiences and demonstrate how you think about and relate to the world around you. Specifically, what are some of your values? What’s meaningful to you? What do you find important? 

Personal values can be things like communication, patience, nature, health, personal development, courage, self-love, authenticity, healthy boundaries, or even humor. Before you start drafting your personal statement, take a moment to reflect on the things that you find important and why. 

We’re all very different people coming from different backgrounds, and we have different experiences that impact our individual values. While some of your values will overlap with those of other people, your personal reflection on the values that resonate most with you will separate your statement from someone else’s. 

The best way to include your values, skills, and traits in your essay is to pair them with specific examples and anecdotes. Each anecdote should align with at least one of the values that you find most important and should be accompanied by your personal reflection on the value and its related experience. 

Here’s an example. A student does not have a parent or guardian around to shoulder the expenses of caring for them and their younger sibling. In their outline, the student says that they value autonomy, financial stability, and family. Throughout the essay, they demonstrate these values by talking about getting a part-time job to help support the family and caring for their sibling at home. They also excel academically and even petition to have an AP Physics II course offered at their school. 

The student has shown autonomy by taking the initiative to petition for the new course and by getting a job. They have also demonstrated that both financial stability and family are important to them by pitching in to support their parent and sibling.

Your examples should show your reader your values by being specific and personal to your background and experiences.

Reflecting on Your Experiences 

Reflecting on your values is an equally important part of the personal statement. Your reflections or insight should focus on not only your experiences but also who you are and who you want to become. The insight you include in your essay shows that you’ve really found meaning from your personal experiences.

Insight can take a few forms. A common way to show insight is by writing about a growth experience. Show how you went from point A in your life to point B, and share the lessons you’ve learned along the way. For example, people often reflect on how navigating a strenuous activity or challenge changed the way that they thought about themselves and what they could handle. Reflecting on that change in confidence is one way to demonstrate insight.

One of the clearest ways to explore insight is to self-reflect and write about how something has either connected you to, influenced, or reframed how you think of your own values. Maybe you once pushed yourself too hard, and that experience showed you the value of rest and mindfulness. Or perhaps a change in circumstances shifted or redefined your values to an extent. 

For example, a person might say that while they craved stability as a child because of their home life, they now see the value of risk-taking and adventure in enriching their own knowledge and experiences. In this example, both security and risk are important to the speaker, but their experiences ultimately shifted weight from one value to another.

Regardless of how you approach your personal statement, insight is the overarching meaning that you take away from the relevant experiences and values you’ve shared.

Are you looking for more guidance as you draft your personal statement? Check out this post on how to come up with a strong topic that wows your admissions reader!

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Seven ways to find your purpose in life, having a meaningful, long-term goal is good for your well-being. here’s how to find one..

Many of the people I know seem to have a deep sense of purpose. Whether working for racial justice, teaching children to read, making inspiring art, or collecting donations of masks and face shields for hospitals during the pandemic, they’ve found ways to blend their passion, talents, and care for the world in a way that infuses their lives with meaning.

Luckily for them, having a purpose in life is associated with all kinds of benefits. Research suggests that purpose is tied to having better health , longevity , and even economic success . It feels good to have a sense of purpose, knowing that you are using your skills to help others in a way that matters to you.

But how do you go about finding your purpose if it’s not obvious to you? Is it something you develop naturally over the course of a lifetime ? Or are there steps you can take to encourage more purpose in your life?


Likely both, says Kendall Bronk , a researcher who directs the Adolescent Moral Development Lab at Claremont Graduate University. People can find a sense of purpose organically—or through deliberate exercises and self-reflection. Sometimes, just having someone talk to you about what matters to you makes you think more intentionally about your life and your purpose, says Bronk.

In her work with adolescents, she’s found that some teens find purpose after experiencing hardship. Maybe a kid who has experienced racism decides to become a civil rights advocate. Or one who’s suffered severe illness decides to study medicine. Of course, experiences like poverty and illness are extremely hard to overcome without help from others. But Bronk’s research suggests that having a supportive social network—caring family members, like-minded friends, or mentors, for example—helps youth to reframe hardship as a challenge they can play a role in changing for the better. That might be true of adults, too.

While hardship can lead to purpose, most people probably find purpose in a more meandering way, says Bronk—through a combination of education, experience, and self-reflection, often helped along by encouragement from others . But finding your purpose can be jump-started, too, given the right tools. She and her colleagues have found that exercises aimed at uncovering your values, interests, and skills, as well as practicing positive emotions like gratitude, can help point you toward your purpose in life.

Here are some of her recommendations based on her research on purpose.

1. Identify the things you care about


Purpose is all about applying your skills toward contributing to the greater good in a way that matters to you. So, identifying what you care about is an important first step.

In Greater Good’s Purpose Challenge , designed by Bronk and her team, high school seniors were asked to think about the world around them—their homes, communities, the world at large—and visualize what they would do if they had a magic wand and could change anything they wanted to change (and why). Afterward, they could use that reflection to consider more concrete steps they might take to contribute toward moving the world a little closer to that ideal.

A similar process is recommended for older adults by Jim Emerman of Encore.org, an organization that helps seniors find new purpose in life. Instead of envisioning an ideal future world, though, he suggests posing three questions to yourself:

• What are you good at?
• What have you done that gave you a skill that can be used for a cause?
• What do you care about in your community?

By reflecting on these questions, he says, older adults can brainstorm ideas for repurposing skills and pursuing interests developed over a lifetime toward helping the world.

2. Reflect on what matters most

Sometimes it can be hard to single out one or two things that matter most to you because your circle of care and concern is far-ranging. Understanding what you value most may help you narrow down your purpose in life to something manageable that also truly resonates with you.

There are several good values surveys to choose from, including these three recommended by PositivePsychology.com: the Valued Living Questionnaire , the Portrait Values Questionnaire , and the Personal Values Questionnaire . All have been used in research studies and may be helpful to those who feel overwhelmed by all they want to change.

Bronk found that helping people prioritize their values is useful for finding purpose. The survey used in Greater Good’s purpose challenge—where students were asked to look at common values and rank which were most important, least important, and in between—has been shown to be effective in helping people clarify their purpose.

Once you’re clearer on your deepest values, Bronk recommends asking yourself: What do these values say about you as a person? How do these values influence your daily life? How might they relate to what you want to do with the rest of your life? Doing this exercise can help you discover how you can put your values to use.

3. Recognize your strengths and talents

We all have strengths and skills that we’ve developed over our lifetimes, which help make up our unique personalities. Yet some of us may be unsure of what we have to offer.

If we need help, a survey like the VIA Character Strengths Survey can be useful in identifying our personal strengths and embracing them more fully. Then, you can take the results and think about how you can apply them toward something you really care about.

But it can also be helpful to ask others—teachers, friends, family, colleagues, mentors—for input. In the Purpose Challenge, students were asked to send emails to five people who knew them well and to pose questions like:

• What do you think I’m particularly good at?
• What do you think I really enjoy?
• How do you think I’ll leave my mark on the world?

Adults can do this if they need feedback, too—either formally or informally in conversation with trusted others. People who know you well may be able to see things in you that you don’t recognize in yourself, which can point you in unexpected directions. On the other hand, there is no need to overly rely on that feedback if it doesn’t resonate. Getting input is useful if it clarifies your strengths—not if it’s way off base.

4. Try volunteering

Finding purpose involves more than just self-reflection. According to Bronk, it’s also about trying out new things and seeing how those activities enable you to use your skills to make a meaningful difference in the world. Volunteering in a community organization focused on something of interest to you could provide you with some experience and do good at the same time.

Working with an organization serving others can put you in touch with people who share your passions and inspire you. In fact, it’s easier to find and sustain purpose with others’ support —and a do-gooder network can introduce you to opportunities and a community that shares your concern. Volunteering has the added benefit of improving our health and longevity, at least for some people.

However, not all volunteer activities will lead to a sense of purpose. “Sometimes volunteering can be deadening,” warns Stanford University researcher Anne Colby. “It needs to be engaging. You have to feel you’re accomplishing something.” When you find a good match for you, volunteering will likely “feel right” in some way—not draining, but invigorating.

5. Imagine your best possible self

This exercise if particularly useful in conjunction with the magic-wand exercise described above. In Greater Good’s Purpose Challenge, high school students were asked to imagine themselves at 40 years of age if everything had gone as well as it could have in their lives. Then, they answered questions, like:

• What are you doing?
• What is important to you?
• What do you really care about, and why?

The why part is particularly important, because purposes usually emerges from our reasons for caring, says Bronk.

Of course, those of us who are a bit older can still find these questions valuable. However, says Bronk, older folks may want to reflect back rather than look ahead. She suggests we think about what we’ve always wanted to do but maybe couldn’t because of other obligations (like raising kids or pursuing a career). There seems to be something about seeing what you truly want for yourself and the world that can help bring you closer to achieving it, perhaps by focusing your attention on the people and experiences you encounter that may help you get there.

6. Cultivate positive emotions like gratitude and awe

To find purpose, it helps to foster positive emotions , like awe and gratitude. That’s because each of these emotions is tied to well-being, caring about others, and finding meaning in life, which all help us focus on how we can contribute to the world.

More on Purpose

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In her study with young adults, Bronk found that practicing gratitude was particularly helpful in pointing students toward purpose. Reflecting on the blessings of their lives often leads young people to “ pay it forward ” in some way, which is how gratitude can lead to purpose.

There are many ways to cultivate awe and gratitude. Awe can be inspired by seeing the beauty in nature or recalling an inspirational moment . Gratitude can be practiced by keeping a gratitude journal or writing a gratitude letter to someone who helped you in life. Whatever tools you use, developing gratitude and awe has the added benefit of being good for your emotional well-being, which can give you the energy and motivation you need to carry out your purposeful goals.

7. Look to the people you admire

Sometimes the people we admire most in life give us a clue to how we might want to contribute to a better world ourselves. Reading about the work of civil rights leaders or climate activists can give us a moral uplift that can serve as motivation for working toward the greater good.

However, sometimes looking at these larger-than-life examples can be too intimidating , says Bronk. If so, you can look for everyday people who are doing good in smaller ways. Maybe you have a friend who volunteers to collect food for the homeless or a colleague whose work in promoting social justice inspires you.

You don’t need fame to fulfill your purpose in life. You just need to look to your inner compass—and start taking small steps in the direction that means the most to you.

This article is part of a GGSC initiative on “ Finding Purpose Across the Lifespan ,” supported by the John Templeton Foundation. In a series of articles, podcast episodes, and other resources, we’ll be exploring why and how to deepen your sense of purpose at different stages of life.

About the Author

Jill Suttie

Jill Suttie, Psy.D. , is Greater Good ’s former book review editor and now serves as a staff writer and contributing editor for the magazine. She received her doctorate of psychology from the University of San Francisco in 1998 and was a psychologist in private practice before coming to Greater Good .

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Article • 9 min read

What Are Your Values?

Deciding what's important in life.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

Key Takeaways

• Your personal values are a central part of who you are – and who you want to be.
• By becoming more aware of these vital factors in your life, you can use them as a guide to make the best choice in any situation.
• Some of life's decisions are really about determining what you value most. When many options seem reasonable, you can rely on your values to point you in the right direction.
• When how you live matches your values, life is usually good. When your existence doesn't align with your personal values, that's when things feel... wrong and you can feel unhappy.

How would you define your values?

Before you answer this question, you need to know what, in general, values are.

Your values are the things that you believe are important in the way you live and work.

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.

This is why making a conscious effort to identify your values is so important. So in this article and in the video, below, we're going to take a look at how you can identify your personal values.

How Values Help You

Values exist, whether you recognize them or not. Life can be much easier when you acknowledge your values – and when you make plans and decisions that honor them.

If you value family, but you have to work 70-hour weeks in your job, will you feel internal stress and conflict? And if you don't value competition, and you work in a highly competitive sales environment, are you likely to be satisfied with your job?

In these types of situations, understanding your values can really help. When you know your own values, you can use them to make decisions about how to live your life, and you can answer questions like these:

• What job should I pursue?
• Should I accept this promotion?
• Should I start my own business?
• Should I compromise, or be firm with my position?
• Should I follow tradition, or travel down a new path?

So, take the time to understand the real priorities in your life, and you'll be able to determine the best direction for you and your life goals !

Values are usually fairly stable, yet they don't have strict limits or boundaries. Also, as you move through life, your values may change.

For example, when you start your career, success – measured by money and status – might be a top priority.

But after you have a family, work-life balance may be what you value more.

As your definition of success changes, so do your personal values. This is why keeping in touch with your values is a lifelong exercise. You should continuously revisit this, especially if you start to feel unbalanced... and you can't quite figure out why.

As you go through the exercise below, bear in mind that values that were important in the past may not be relevant now.

Defining Your Values

When you define your personal values, you discover what's truly important to you. A good way of starting to do this is to look back on your life – to identify when you felt really good, and really confident that you were making good choices.

Step 1: Identify the times when you were happiest

Find examples from both your career and personal life. This will ensure some balance in your answers.

• What were you doing?
• Were you with other people? Who?
• What other factors contributed to your happiness?

Step 2: Identify the times when you were most proud

Use examples from your career and personal life.

• Why were you proud?
• Did other people share your pride? Who?
• What other factors contributed to your feelings of pride?

Step 3: Identify the times when you were most fulfilled and satisfied

Again, use both work and personal examples.

• What need or desire was fulfilled?
• How and why did the experience give your life meaning?
• What other factors contributed to your feelings of fulfillment?

Step 4: Determine your top values, based on your experiences of happiness, pride, and fulfillment

Why is each experience truly important and memorable? Use the following list of common personal values to help you get started – and aim for about 10 top values. (As you work through, you may find that some of these naturally combine. For instance, if you value philanthropy, community, and generosity, you might say that service to others is one of your top values.)

Common Personal Core Values

Step 5: prioritize your top values.

This step is probably the most difficult, because you'll have to look deep inside yourself. It's also the most important step, because, when making a decision, you'll have to choose between solutions that may satisfy different values. This is when you must know which value is more important to you.

• Write down your top values, not in any particular order.
• Look at the first two values and ask yourself, "If I could satisfy only one of these, which would I choose?" It might help to visualize a situation in which you would have to make that choice. For example, if you compare the values of service and stability, imagine that you must decide whether to sell your house and move to another country to do valuable foreign aid work, or keep your house and volunteer to do charity work closer to home.
• Keep working through the list, by comparing each value with each other value, until your list is in the correct order.

If you have a tough time doing this, consider using Paired Comparison Analysis to help you. With this method, you decide which of two options is most important, and then assign a score to show how much more important it is. Since it's so important to identify and prioritize your values, investing your time in this step is definitely worth it.

Step 6: Reaffirm your values

Check your top-priority values, and make sure that they fit with your life and your vision for yourself.

• Do these values make you feel good about yourself?
• Are you proud of your top three values?
• Would you be comfortable and proud to tell your values to people you respect and admire?
• Do these values represent things you would support, even if your choice isn't popular, and it puts you in the minority?

When you consider your values in decision making, you can be sure to keep your sense of integrity and what you know is right, and approach decisions with confidence and clarity. You'll also know that what you're doing is best for your current and future happiness and satisfaction.

Making value-based choices may not always be easy. However, making a choice that you know is right is a lot less difficult in the long run.

Top Tip for Defining Your Own Core Values

You can breathe life into your values by defining briefly, in writing, what they represent to you. Crystalizing what they stand for and why they matter to you will help embed their importance.

Keep the definitions short and write them in your own words, so you are really connected to them. These definitions will be handy reminders of who you are and what matters most to you – when and if you need reminding when there are decisions to be made.

For example, if one of your core values is “creativity” you might say, “I value it because the ability to solve problems and to come up with fresh, new ideas brings me joy and a deep sense of fulfillment.”

Frequently Asked Questions About Values

What does it mean to have values.

Your values are the beliefs and principles that you believe are important in the way that you live and work.

They (should) determine your priorities, and guide your decisions and the way you act towards others. When the things that you do, and the way that you behave, match your values, life is usually good.

Why Are Personal Values Important?

Understanding your values can really help make life easier and make you happier.

This happens because when you acknowledge your values – and make plans and decisions that honor them – you can use your values to make truly informed decisions about how to live your life.

By understanding the real priorities in your life, you'll be able to determine the best direction for you and meaningful life goals.

Identifying and understanding your values is a challenging and important exercise. Your personal values are a central part of who you are – and who you want to be. By becoming more aware of these important factors in your life, you can use them as a guide to make the best choice in any situation.

Some of life's decisions are really about determining what you value most. When many options seem reasonable, it's helpful and comforting to rely on your values – and use them as a strong guiding force to point you in the right direction.

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Comments (6)

tom like lachie

about 1 month

i think i might be pregnant and i am a boy so i am pooing bricks

Naazish Mohsin

Interesting write up where are the references?

I would highly recommend people to try a scientific core values finder assessment instead of informal quizes.

has a good balance.

Donagh Kenny

excellenet resource

about 1 year

Latrece Thomas

I feel that everyone should set high values for themself. Integrity is a value I think 🥰 everyone should honor.

over 1 year

i think i might be pregnant

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Essay on Values for Students and Children

500+ words essay on values.

Importance of Values

For an individual, values are most important. An individual with good values is loved by everyone around as he is compassionate about others and also he behaves ethically.

Values Help in Decision Making

A person is able to judge what is right and what is wrong based on the values he imbibes. In life at various steps, it makes the decision-making process easier. A person with good values is always likely to make better decisions than others.

Values Can Give Direction to Our Life

In life, Values give us clear goals. They always tell us how we should behave and act in different situations and give the right direction to our life. In life, a person with good values can take better charge.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Values Can Build Character

If a person wants a strong character, then he has to possesses good values such as honesty , loyalty, reliability, efficiency, consistency, compassion, determination, and courage. Values always help in building our character.

Values Can Help in Building a Society

If u want a better society then people need to bear good values. Values play an important role in society. They only need to do their hard work, with compassion, honesty, and other values. Such people will help in the growth of society and make it a much better place to live.

Characteristics of Values

Values are always based on various things. While the basic values remain the same across cultures and are intact since centuries some values may vary. Values may be specific to a society or age. In the past, it was considered that women with good moral values must stay at home and not voice their opinion on anything but however, this has changed over time. Our culture and society determine the values to a large extent. We imbibe values during our childhood years and they remain with us throughout our life.

Family always plays the most important role in rendering values to us. Decisions in life are largely based on the values we possess. Values are permanent and seldom change. A person is always known by the values he possesses. The values of a person always reflect on his attitude and overall personality.

The Decline of Values in the Modern Times

While values are of great importance and we are all aware of the same unfortunately people these days are so engrossed in making money and building a good lifestyle that they often overlook the importance of values. At the age when children must be taught good values, they are taught to fight and survive in this competitive world. Their academics and performance in other activities are given importance over their values.

Parents , as well as teachers, teach them how to take on each other and win by any means instead of inculcating good sportsman spirit in them and teaching them values such as integrity, compassion, and patience. Children always look up to their elders as their role models and it is unfortunate that elders these days have a lack of values. Therefore the children learn the same.

In order to help him grow into a responsible and wise human being, it is important for people to realize that values must be given topmost priority in a child’s life because children are the future of the society. There can be nothing better in a society where a majority of people have good values and they follow the ethical norms.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Values — The core values of my life

The Core Values of My Life

• Categories: Values

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Published: Dec 5, 2018

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6 Common Leadership Styles — and How to Decide Which to Use When

• Rebecca Knight

Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances call for different approaches.

Research suggests that the most effective leaders adapt their style to different circumstances — be it a change in setting, a shift in organizational dynamics, or a turn in the business cycle. But what if you feel like you’re not equipped to take on a new and different leadership style — let alone more than one? In this article, the author outlines the six leadership styles Daniel Goleman first introduced in his 2000 HBR article, “Leadership That Gets Results,” and explains when to use each one. The good news is that personality is not destiny. Even if you’re naturally introverted or you tend to be driven by data and analysis rather than emotion, you can still learn how to adapt different leadership styles to organize, motivate, and direct your team.

Much has been written about common leadership styles and how to identify the right style for you, whether it’s transactional or transformational, bureaucratic or laissez-faire. But according to Daniel Goleman, a psychologist best known for his work on emotional intelligence, “Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances may call for different approaches.”

• RK Rebecca Knight is a journalist who writes about all things related to the changing nature of careers and the workplace. Her essays and reported stories have been featured in The Boston Globe, Business Insider, The New York Times, BBC, and The Christian Science Monitor. She was shortlisted as a Reuters Institute Fellow at Oxford University in 2023. Earlier in her career, she spent a decade as an editor and reporter at the Financial Times in New York, London, and Boston.

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