What are Your Values?

What matters most to you? What qualities do you respect in other people? What would you like your own choices to show?

These questions bring us to our values. A value is something we consider important, such as honesty, kindness, freedom, or fairness. Our values influence the way we treat people, the work we choose, and what we are willing to do to get a result.

We may not have thought much about them. Sometimes we only discover a value when something violates it. We feel strongly about an unfair decision, a broken promise, or a situation where someone is being treated badly. That reaction can tell us something about what matters to us.

Values can also pull us in different directions. We may value helping others and also need time for our own work or rest. We then have to decide what fits the particular situation. Being helpful does not require saying yes to everything.

As you begin this course, choose a few values you want to give more attention to. They can help you decide which possibilities are worth pursuing and how you want to pursue them.

An achievement is more satisfying when the way we reach it also feels right.

Try this

Write down three values that matter to you. Keep these in mind as you move through these lessons.