What are your personal values?

A person's got to have a code,
a creed to live by
~ John Wayne ~

In general, personal values evolve from circumstances with the external world and these can change over time. For many generations, most of us learned our values - sometimes referred to as morals, from parents, teachers and religious leaders. Family, country, generation, experience, historical environment and your perception of all of these, may also have an influence on the values you adopted. As we participated in life, the influence over our choice of values may have changed. Today, television, news opinions and the opinions of others, may have an influence over your choice of values.

Love, courage, bravery, honesty, integrity and compassion are examples of values. Many people are taught that certain behaviors have value and these behaviors also show value to ourselves and others.

Your personal values are implicitly related to choice - your choice, and they guide your decisions.

Do you keep them, or compromise them in order to get what you want in the moment or event? Do you ignore them in an attempt to make another person happy or influence someone else?

Anytime we compromise our personal values, for whatever reason, we are damaging our self-image and our self-esteem, as well as comprising our results. Some times this is referred to as “selling out” or “selling your soul”.

In order to be empowered by your values, you must be clear what they are. The more you recognize and honor your personal values, the more your self esteem benefits, your feelings of self value increase and the world sees the best of you.

What do your stand for?

What is important to you in your life?

What is important to you in a mate?

What is important to you in profession, your job or career?

Are you living the values that motivate you to feel good about yourself?

Right now, can you write down your 5 highest non-compromisable values?
These values that you will honor – no matter what ! No disclaimers or exceptions.

This can be tricky for some people. Some will write that "honesty" is one of their values. However, does this mean all the time, or to everyone except telemarketers and the IRS? Non-compromisable values are those values that you will honor without disclaimers or exceptions.

If you can start with only one - that's a start. If you don't have one, then choose the one you are willing to have and honor and start there. If you can write a list and know deep in your gut that you are honoring these values, then honor yourself for your commitment to your values and yourself.