Core Values of Life - Are They the Same For Everyone?
Core Values of Life - Are They the Same For Everyone
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I meet a lot of people in my line of work as a Life Coach and most of the time this question takes them by surprise.
What I also notice is that although initially during our first coaching sessions, the person might identify certain values as representing the core beliefs that influence that person's life, these Values change, sometimes radically as the individual embarks on the journey of self-discovery through the Core Values Clarification Exercise that I take my clients through.
So are people born with a common set of Values? Are there commonalities in individuals or are a person's values totally different and unique to others?
Clearly there are certain trends that are common when you are working on clarifying the values of a person.
For example people may fall under certain main categories with an overall alignment towards for example:
Security Order and Commitment
Freedom, Risk and Adventure.
In such situations there is a clear difference in these people's focus in life and they will very probably buy different cars, live in different houses, have different friends and partners, live different lifestyles and take different holidays to mention a few examples.
You might think that most people will thus fall within a few common categories and that those people within the same category would have the same set of Values.
However when you ask a person to finalize a list of 10 Core Values and place them in order of importance you will rarely find that there is a list of Core Values that follows a common trend. That's when Core Values clarification exercises get interesting! The way that a person may give importance to one value and not another, and the way that the final list is drawn up is usually unique for that person.
As if this were not complicated enough, you may find yourself facing a list of Values that are not congruent within themselves; values that are actually in conflict. Let's say that a person has identified the values of Financial Success and Security as his main values and his moving away Value that he or she fears most is Failure. Such a set of Values will clearly clash against each other and the person may find it difficult to take important decisions in life. To financially succeed you need to take risks and get out of your comfort zone at times and if you like security and fear failure, you will never venture into the challenging environment that is required in order to succeed. This will create a sense of being 'stuck' in life and a feeling that the core values are not being honoured.
On the other hand a person may still have Success, Security and Failure as the main driving forces in life, but the meaning of success for this person may be focused on family life, in which case there would probably be no incongruence. Family success, security and failure especially in terms of family life may actually sustain the person to move in a clear direction because family life gives the person security and he or she will do the very best to prevent any failure in this relationship.
Core Values clarification is a very important step in the journey of self-discovery because the final list of Values and their interpretation is never the same for anyone. Trust me, in all my years of Coaching I have never found one person who had exactly the same Core Values in exactly the same sequence of importance and with the same perception around each individual value.
Since core values are the main drivers of our decisions the importance of clarifying your values cannot be underestimated.
So again, if I were to ask you what your 10 Core Values were, would you be able to answer without hesitation? If you were to list them according to priority would you be surprised by what you discover about yourself? Could there be any incongruence in your individual core values that may be holding you back in life and giving you a sense of uneasiness and lack of fulfilment? Is it time for you to discover what really drives your passion in life?
To receive a FREE Report that provides information on the 10 Vital Keys to Life Success and other resources visithttp://www.insightzonecoach.com orhttp://www.insightzonecoach.com/blog.
Reggie Aquilina is the Founder of Insight Zone Academy. He is a Life Coach and works in the field of Adult Learning and Development. He is actively involved in providing e-learning resources related to Life Coaching and he is the creator of the Life Coaching Home Study Course: The 10 PowerKeys Program.
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