Finding Your Core Values: The Framework for How You Live Your Life
Hello lovelies,
In a world with 7.9 billion people, it can be difficult not to get lost in the chaos of everyday life. In today’s world, life gets busy. The people you’re around, your job, mental health, and societal dilemmas can cause buzz and distractions in discovering who you are. It does not matter what age you are; developing a sense of self-esteem and self-efficacy is essential to finding authentic happiness. Sometimes it needs to be learned, and sometimes it needs to be reminded. What is critical is self-awareness and the desire to master your mind to change your life. You must first recognize that people have opinions, and these opinions can subconsciously seep into your persona. It’s important not to let other people’s projections affect your way of thinking. To become mentally resilient, you must learn who you are on a soul level and be highly confident in your core values.
To discover your core values and understand who you are, you must reflect deeply on your past experiences, upbringing, and current relationships to understand what has shaped you into who you are today. For many, high school is a formative experience that shapes a young adult's emotional state, psyche, and belief system. For others, it may be entering college and creating a new version of themselves to enter the “real world.” The experiences people go through have the power to shape their mindset and, in turn, affect how they interact with the world. It’s essential to identify who you are as your most authentic self. What are your strengths? How do you dress? How do you communicate with the world? What do you desire most? What interests you? What hobbies make you happy? What are your goals? To achieve authentic happiness, you must determine if you’re living for yourself or if you are living for the expected version of yourself to fit society’s expectations. It’s essential to recognize that the most ideal version of yourself is your most authentic self. You must have definitive core values, nonnegotiables, and immense self-respect to embrace your most authentic self. No person, place, or thing should ever have the power to devalue you as a human being. It’s essential to recognize that it’s better to leave certain situations than stay in hopes of discovering the “what-if possibilities.”
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By establishing definitive core values and nonnegotiables, you are setting yourself up for success in establishing boundaries, eliminating people-pleasing tendencies, and making room for what is meant to enter your life.
To establish core values, you must understand the meaning of values. In society’s view, values are the principles of life that give meaning to persevere in the face of adversity. Values are the fundamental pillars of your belief system that allow you to make decisions and choose right from wrong in the face of ethical and moral choices. Core values are values people exhibit in their lives and consider important. These can include compassion, integrity, courage, loyalty, respect, or honesty. Your core values are the fundamental pillars of beliefs that you operate from. Core values guide you through life and ground you to your non-negotiables. Identifying your core values is essential to achieving personal goals and identifying aspects of your most authentic self.
Questions to ask yourself when defining your core values:
What motivates you? Passions? Reasons from the past?
What qualities do you admire most in the people around you? Who around you has traits that your most ideal self possesses?
What qualities do you look for in your friends? Are they trustworthy? What are their personalities like? How do they treat other people?
What types of people energize you? Are you more introverted or extroverted?
How do you treat people, and how do you expect people to treat you? Kindness? Respect?
What qualities do you wish to develop in your personal and professional life? Organization? Boundary setting? Work-life balance?
What environmental setting do you work best in? Individual? Coworking spaces? Team based?
What type of work interests you? Creative? Data driven? Collaborative? Influential?
What qualities do you find in yourself that hold you responsible for tasks? Discipline? Quality? Reliability?
For inspiration purposes, here is a list of common core values:
Authenticity
Adventure
Autonomy
Balance
Compassion
Challenge
Community
Competency
Creativity
Determination
Fairness
Faith
Friendships
Growth
Happiness
Honesty
Humor
Influence
Integrity
Justice
Kindness
Knowledge
Love
Loyalty
Openness
Optimism
Peace
Recognition
Reputation
Respect
Responsibility
Security
Service
Stability
Success
Status
Wealth
When defining your core values, you must take the lessons you have learned from past experiences and incorporate them into your guide for life. To do so, you must perform a life audit. When performing a life audit, consider the people who have come into your life and reflect on your past experiences. For example, think of your childhood friendships. Are you still friends? Have you grown apart? Are you on different life paths? Are they living in another city than you? Think of your college friendships. Are they working? Are they pursuing a secondary degree? Traveling? In relationships? Living at home? Based on these formative friendships, how are these friends acting now that you are living a different life? Is the friendship healthy? Is communication effective? Do you share similar values and interests? Are they respecting your boundaries and time? Think of your adult friendships. Are these people good influences? Are they living a similar life that you desire? Do they have similar ambitions and motivations? Are they supportive? These questions may arise once you jump timelines and shift priorities. Proximity is a powerful force that enables people to form friendships based on location, commonality in work, and lifestyle. Once proximity is severed and everyone begins living different lives, it is natural for individuals to move in different directions and have differing expectations and mindsets.
As a framework, your core values should define your relationship with yourself, the kind of people you want to attract into your life, the type of job/role you want to have in society, what motivates you to become your best self, and the quality you need to have to establish your ideal self. This quality will become your grounding “word” when shifting to your ideal reality and set the tone for your decision to move towards this change.
For example, my core values are authenticity, integrity, balance, influence, and happiness. I desire to live authentically and move through society as myself, where I don’t let social media dictate my likes and dislikes. I strive to attract people with integrity, as I value honesty and moral integrity. I desire a work-life balance lifestyle in today’s rushed society. I aim to influence and enact positive change. Happiness is my grounding word of choice because it reminds me that I am the author of my own story in this lifetime, and my happiness depends on myself.
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Your core values set the blueprint and precedent for how you want to live your life. Anything you put your energy and mind into is attainable. This change solidifies the frame for determining your nonnegotiables and setting healthy boundaries. By defining your core values, you shift your life to achieve your ideal reality. You begin to question your current reality and ask yourself if it’s one that you want to be living. You start to question if the people around you are your friends or if they are just acquaintances who don’t want to know the real you. You begin to ask yourself if the location you’re currently living in is where you’ll reach authentic happiness or if there’s somewhere out there that might offer you genuine, authentic happiness. These questions are specific for a subgroup of people but true for many. For some, this can be rather unsettling as you are disrupting everything you know to start fresh and get what you deserve. Humans are social creatures, and post-pandemic people crave human connection. Being spontaneous and always saying yes to social outings to cultivate relationships is stellar, but sometimes, others can take advantage of it.
Other people may perceive your constant availability as dependable, and when you disrupt your role in their reality, they may get upset. People can take advantage of your sense of boundaries when you are always available. Some people may interpret your availability as comfort, and when you begin to say no, they may act on their emotions and negatively towards you. In society, this is how people-pleasing tendencies begin. Humans are hardwired to be empathetic towards the feelings of others. You may diffuse the situation by reasoning with these people to avoid discomfort. However, when you concede to prevent tension in a friendship or relationship, you only disrespect yourself. Recognizing that some may misunderstand and interpret your actions as harsh and impersonal is essential. What’s important to remember is your boundaries protect your energy. Individuals who respect your boundaries and your response of “no” have respect for you as a person. Those who get upset with your response, gaslight, or alienate you for having different opinions are not there for you. By conceding to preserve a friendship or relationship, in the long run, you are priming these individuals to take advantage of you, your time, and your energy by not being firm in your boundaries. Your job is to stay true to your boundaries by deciding if these people’s actions align with your core values. Ask yourself if these people constantly act like this when you inconvenience them, commonly project onto you, have respect for you, and are there for you when you need them. These questions can help you determine if these individuals act constantly or if their behavior is circumstantial to a specific event.
Establishing boundaries and eliminating people-pleasing tendencies sets the tone for your non-negotiables. Once your core values are defined, you gain clarity on what you want to achieve and make room for what is meant for you. It is advisable to have nonnegotiables for both friendships and relationships. Determine the types of friendships you want to attract and write a list. Write a list describing how you want these people to make you feel, their qualities, how they support you, and how often you wish to see them. Determine the type of partner you want to attract and write a list. Write a list describing how you want them to love you, their values, and how they make you feel.
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