Core Values

“Core values really defines who you are and it’s really sad that in today’s society there’s not enough room and enough time and nobody teaching being able to focus in on yourself and who you are… It’s just really finding out who you are, what you are, and what your core values are, and then building a life based around that.”

Jason, Core Values And Your Future Success Podcast & Transcript 

Identifying your Core values is incredibly important which is why ‘I’ have dedicated a whole sub section to them here.

This is because if you are in conflict with your core values internally during your daily life, whether at work or within your personal relationships then you will be unhappier as a result of this tension.

Your values determine your thoughts and then in turn your Human emotions. Your emotions can be thought of as your interpretation of whether your values are being met or not – see Maslow’s Human needs from earlier for more on these.

Your behaviour is then driven by your emotions and thoughts which then form habits from your repeated behaviour.

Habits

Habits are important to identify in your life as they are those things that you can just fall into if you aren’t paying attention or you are not consciously aligned to your core values.

Bad habits could be drinking or smoking too much when you are out with certain people, eating unhealthy junk food as a ‘reward’ for something you don’t really enjoy, not playing any physical sport but instead playing video games because you feel anxious or don’t want to see certain people etc.

The good news is you can break the bad habits! See the link to Mark’s site under the image above for his ideas on how to do this.

However, unless you have taken the time to work out around 5 core values you want to define you and try and base your everyday life around it’s very hard to even be able to being to understand why you form your habits.

If you find this step too hard on your own you might need to ask friends or family for help or maybe look online for other personal value based web sites or coaches.

When ‘I’ am doing this process myself ‘I’ always try and think back to times when ‘I’ have been at MY happiest in order to try and identity what values were driving this happiness as ‘I’ find this easiest. However ‘I’ also then try to think of those times when ‘I’ was angry, frustrated or bored in a situation or relationship to see if there were any values ‘I’ was not hitting and likely causing these negative emotions.

Once you have this list, try and honestly rate how each of these are aligned with your professional and personal life – use a scale of our of 5, out or 10 or % it’s up to you. The important part of all this is being HONEST with your true self.

Below are some example core values to try and help you with this process. NOTE: The following list is NOT exhaustive and each of these can mean something different to you compared to others or be grouped differently by you and that is ok…

Core Values List

Now you have a solid foundation of your core values to guide you hopefully you can use these with other techniques to improve your overall well-being 🙏

However, now we have discussed some of your internal experience in more general terms please get comfortable in order to get uncomfortable as we discuss the Human ego…