List of Personal Life Values
For Example, You are a surgeon and one morning, at 4,o clock, you get an emergency call from your hospital to attend an accident patient who is critical. So, you have to be in the hospital as soon as possible. As you drive to the hospital, there is red signal in a traffic early morning 6'o clock and there are no vehicles on the road. The principle is, "You are suppose to stop your vehicle when there is a red signal", Ethics is to follow the principle. That is, you have to stop at the signal until it goes green. There are two options you have: 1) Wait until red goes green. But longer you wait, critical the person becomes. 2) Break the signal to save your patient. The decision you take is moral. Moral is the distinction between right and wrong. You say to yourself, "As my patient is suffering, it is fine to break thetraffic signal and it is not unethical as I'm breaking the rule to save a person and above all, there are no vehicles or people on the road." However, if you have a strong value of not breaking the legal rules, you will wait for the traffic signal to go green even if your patient is dying. You behavior during any situation is your conduct
To identify your values, Patiently recall your past actions to identify your behavior in certain life situations. You persistent behavior is the result of your personal value. For example, If you have a history of being honest even during the most challenging situations, your personal value could be "Trust". Another example, This person's dream is to contribute to the general public and the society. Keeping this aspiration in mind, you can derive the value, “Social responsibility” as a part of a person's self values. However, you must have perseverance in upholding these values even during the most challenging situations.
There are no right or wrong values. It depends on the society that you live. For example:
If you live around people who believe in god, you will be accepted, complimented and respected if you too believe in god; otherwise, there will be a conflict and your will be criticized as, "You are wrong", if you say, "I don't believe in God" because the society believes in God.
Nobody in this world is either right or wrong. it is just that your beliefs and others beliefs differ. You may satisfied as long as you get food, shelter and water. But for others, expectations could be more than just survival. They need fame, status, money, cars and so on.
Some people explicitly articulate personal values in writing and follows it even during the most challenging life situations while others portray it through their admiring behavior without verbalizing it during the different life roles they play that includes a relative, a friend or a citizen. Core personal values simply convey the way any person behaves during good and bad times. It can be derived by studying the past behavioral characteristics or by understanding the future motives of a person.
Here is a brief list of Personal Values examples:
Commitment
Sharing attitude
Learning
Social responsibility
Foresightedness
Result driven
Inventiveness
Resourcefulness
Availability
Determination
Politeness and Courtesy
Privacy
Liability and legality
Openness and trust
Confidentiality
Equality
Honesty
Result focused
Acknowledgement
Contemplation
Security
Money
Order
Meaning
Aesthetics
Clarity
Perseverance
Persistence
Consistence
Time
Fun
Adventure
Flexibility
Reliability
Integrity
Determination
Courage
Spirit
Encouragement
Diversity of language, gender etc…
There are several advantages when people live by their values are:
It enhances the intrapersonal and interpersonal skills of an individual
His/her mistakes could be articulated clearly
He portrays predictable behavior. Interpersonal conflicts can be avoided as your behavior becomes predictable because you uphold certain personal values and people are certain about your behavior.
You will get clarity of your intrapersonal attitude that includes self-respect and self-esteem and also eliminates self-doubt. You will be able to maturely handle criticism, blame and complaints that are posed on you.
You communication and presentation will be focussed, clear and authoritative especially during conflicts and conflict resolution as you are aware of your personal values.
You will not be influenced by people and situations and you make decisions quickly, without regret or guilt as you believe in your personal values.
You will have courage to either disagree or agree with people, say boldly, "Yes" or, "No" respectively even if others have opposing opinions.
You may ask, does values change from time to time? Ideally, values remain unchanged when people are consciously aware of it. However, you can change your core values, if values are inherent, influenced or subconscious in the past and you like to change it in the future. However, it takes time.
To understand other's values, being in a society for some time will help identity the societies' values. Get information about other person's beliefs, opinions, and thoughts by communicating and building rapport with them. Ask questions, listen to them attentively to know their values. During conflicting situations, look forward for oral and non-oral communication cues such as their voice, tone of voice, and other non-verbal communication cues such as gestures, facial expressions and body-language.
You may have to harmonize yourself with other person's values. When your values clash with other person's values, tell them politely by using kind words yet be assertive about your point. Also know what not to say, words, phrases and statements that may hurt the other person's values.