Yesterday my bride and I were discussing values and it begged the question, “What are values?”.
If you go to a coach or a counselor you will always be asked about your values and maybe have to write them down. I always find this hard because only two ever pop into my mind: honesty and integrity. I have to really rack my brains for anymore because I haven’t defined what a value is to me.
So I thought about it this morning and came up with the following.
“Values to me are non negotiable and the guides by which I live my life by.”
Right so that is a definition of what values are but then how many should we have. In one moment you might display a lot of values. You see someone grab an old lady’s bag and push her over. You quickly assess she is ok and run after the robber. Yelling for others to help. He drops the bag and you can return it to her.
In that moment you have displayed a lot of values. Kindness, bravery, responsibility and fairness could be some. But do you display these all the time? No. So this is where I get confused because values to me seem to be ever changing. We do something we learn, we grow, and we pick up another value.
My feeling is though that we only have a few core values we will not move from and they cause us huge stress if we are living in conflict with them. What are your top values? Write them down now. You will know they are your top ones because they will ‘pop’ into your head the instant you ask yourself the question.
Have a great week and share your values on our Facebook page here.