What are Personal Values? 20 Examples of Personal Values

What is a Personal Value?  

Before we get into the importance of personal values and their examples, let’s understand deeply what is a personal value.

Personal values are your real priorities in your life. Personal values are principles, characteristics, and behaviors that you apply to your personal and professional life. They’re anything that shapes your decisions and drives you to pursue your goals. In other words, your personal values allow you to differentiate between good and bad in your society, culture, or community. 

For example, one common personal value is honesty. So, a person who values honesty will always tell the truth, even if it hurts to do so. If he sugarcoats something, he’ll feel he has not upheld his value.

Each person has a unique value set. We develop personal values from social and cultural contexts, life experiences, upbringing, and other influences. While someone’s personal core values include independence and courage, someone else may prioritize cooperation and compassion. There’s no right or wrong value. You just have to define your values by identifying what makes you happy and what motivates you, even if it looks strange to others.

The Importance of Personal Values

Personal values guide you in your everyday decision-making. They enable you to find what makes you happy, what choices can help you live the best life, and what career aligns with your passion. There are huge benefits to having personal values; below are some of the most significant ones:

• • Boosts the quality of your daily life

• • Increases self-awareness

• • Can eliminate unnecessary distractions from your work-life

• • Assists you in goal-setting

• • Help you make sounder decisions

• • Help you become more persistent

• • Reduce stress levels and burnout

• • Positively influence your professional life

20 Examples of Personal Values

After knowing what is a personal value and why it is so important, let’s find your values. Everyone has unique values. If you’re struggling to find yours, the following list of personal values will help inspire you.

1. 1.   Kindness

You might value kindness if you treat others how you want to be treated and respect people around you. Kindness is about always welcoming people with open arms, lifting them, being gentle with criticism, and making life better for others.

2. 2. Honesty

This may be your personal value if you highly value speaking the truth openly and honestly. Sometimes, being honest can be hurtful to others. But a person who puts honesty first is a person who speaks the truth without any fear of criticism or judgment.

3. 3. Gratitude

When you value gratitude, you prioritize it and express it in your thoughts, words, actions, and attitude. In addition, you find yourself appreciating and respecting people when they say thank you, please, or give any thoughtful gift.

4. 4. Patience

Valuing patience means staying calm when someone tries to put you in harder situations, trying to overlook the situation from their perspective, putting yourself in their shoes, and responding respectfully and kindly.

5. 5. Generosity

When one of your values is generosity, you cherish people who give their time and resources to others when needed. Besides, you share your blessings with people who have less and find joy in sharing.

6. 6. Open-mindedness

An open-minded person is always willing to learn new ideas and concepts and even agrees to change their own point of view if new ideas are convincing. Open-mindedness is the opposite of stubbornness.

7. 7. Altruism

If you value altruism, then you have an unselfish concern for others, you perform acts of kindness, and you appreciate people who perform good deeds. Also, valuing altruism means you don’t do anything to feel good or get something out of it; instead, you do selfless acts.

8. 8. Independence

Valuing your independence means you don’t want to tie to a job or a relationship, you have control over your life, and you can make decisions independently for yourself. Independence makes you a creator and enables you to give something noteworthy back whenever you take it from someone else.

9. 9. Determination

A determination may be your personal value if you refuse to give up in tough situations. And you change challenging conditions into opportunities for success.

10. 10.  Personal growth

People who value growth always look for opportunities to learn and grow as a person. You identify your values, mission, and overall process to fulfill your mission. Valuing personal growth means you’re never willing to settle and always look for a chance to learn in hard times.

11. 11. Fitness

You value fitness if you take care of your physical health. This is a great personal value that will help you and give you energy toward other core values in your life. You know that if your body is healthy, your mind will also be healthy.

12. 12.  Confidence

Having confidence means you’ve faith in your own abilities. Confidence is a substantial value that gives you strength and motivation to pursue your dreams and achieve what you want in life.

13. 13.  Frugality

Those who value frugality have a natural habit of spending money conservatively. Having this value also means you’re planning for the future and not just focusing on immediate satisfaction.

14. 14.  Professionalism

If professionalism is central to your personal value set, it means you act professionally in the workplace. Besides, professionalism is also about using good manners, talking politely, and being dependable in your daily life. You can mention this value in an interview or CV.

15. 15.  Respect

When you value respect, it reminds you that you should treat people with respect and accept them despite their differences in beliefs and background from your own. Giving and taking respect is crucial because it develops a sense of connection among people and makes us comfortable.

16. 16.  Continuous learning

Learning is important to you if you look for ways to learn about any topic that interests you. If you value continuous learning, you also value self-improvement and continued success. Also, continuous learning excites you; you never run out of things to learn and never get bored.

17. 17.  Justice

When you value justice, you feel a sense of responsibility to acquire equality in the world. Besides, you want to see everyone treated fairly. You probably advocate for justice in your workplace and like to dedicate your time to diminish discrimination.

18. 18.  Sincerity

Sincerity goes hand-in-hand with honesty. It involves being sincere in relationships and authentic in everything you say. When you value sincerity, you act genuinely and avoid putting on any front to impress others.

19. 19.  Persistence

You might highly value persistence if you are determined to keep going forward despite any setbacks. Even if you feel like giving up, you keep going and taking action because you know you can’t achieve your goals without cost.

20. 20. Risk-taking/Courageousness

If you value courage, you’re a person who is willing to take risks and keep working towards your goals even when things get tough. Courageousness is one of the principal traits of leadership that guarantees a lot of other qualities in a leader, such as confidence, bravery, determination, etc. Last but not least, courage is a significant personal value because it helps you achieve your dreams. 

Final Thoughts

Personal values help shape our personality and guide us in life as we make decisions, interact with others, and face challenges. When you start living with your values, you’ll feel a boost in your happiness, creativity, peace of mind, and flow. Now it’s your turn! Consider this list, try to look for these values within yourself, and start living according to them. One small action can make a huge difference than you realize.

Finding my personal values has been transformational in my own life as it helped me by putting me on a path of living a life I love. Now I believe you’ll also be able to find the values that resonate with you. Once you figure out your personal values, bring more positive things into your life.If you’re still struggling to identify your core values, a life coach can help you discover the core values that will bring success to your life.