The root of finding fulfillment and being true to yourself is understanding your own personal values on a deep and fundamental level. When you honor your values, you find fulfillment in what you are doing and feel at peace. Conversely, when your values are violated, you may feel angry or deeply frustrated.
How can you discover your values? One way is to look at the list of values and try to pick out the ones that speak to you, and then keep narrowing the list down to the top 5 and prioritizing them. You can also look at the times in your life when you felt most fulfilled, fulfilled, and purposeful, and ask yourself what values were being honored. Conversely, when you think of times when you were angry, you may wonder what values were being violated.
I realized this when I got upset about trying to change a plane ticket to go home about 12 hours earlier than planned and was asked to pay more than triple what the original ticket had cost for the hell of it. As I watched my reaction closely, I realized that I value fairness highly, and this situation felt inherently unfair, and that was the basis for my anger.
Keep a list of your values and once you have the top five, try to rank them in order of importance. Which one should you honor above all others? Which one would prevent you from being happy if it were raped? Once you have a maximum value, what would come next? And so on.
These values help you quickly assess the opportunities, people, projects, and environments that will serve you and those that will conflict with your core values. Here is a list of possible values, but you may find others that are a better fit for you. Feel free to add your own words and explore whatever feels right to you.
Abundance
acceptance
Achievement
Precision
achievement
Adaptability
Adventure
Sweetie
Crowded
aggressiveness
agility
Surveillance
Altruism
Ambition
Appreciation
Assertiveness
attention
Attractive
Audacity
Awareness
Balance
Beauty
belonging
Benevolence
Audacity
Courage
Brilliance
Calm
Candor
Ability
Celebrity
Certainty
challenge
charity
Charm
Chastity
happiness
Clarity
Cleaning
Comfort
Commitment
Compassion
Confidence
Compliance
Access
Awareness
Consistency
Contribution
control
Freshness
Cooperation
Courtesy
Creativity
Credibility
Curiosity
decision
Deference
Confidence
Depth
Determination
Devotion
Dignity
Diligence
Discipline
Discovery
Discretion
Diversity
Domain
Have to
Economy
Education
Effectiveness
Efficiency
Elegance
Empathy
Endurance
Energy
Enthusiasm
Excellence
expertise
Exploration
Justice
Faith
Family
fearlessness
Fidelity
Financial Independence
Firmness
Physical aptitude
flexibility
Flow
Approach
Freedom
Amiability
Frugality
Generosity
Donation
Grace
Gratitude
Increase
harmony
Health
Holiness
Honesty
Honor
Modesty
Humor
Imagination
Impact
Impartiality
independence
Industry
insight
Integrity
Intelligence
Intensity
Privacy
Intuition
Happiness
Justice
Amiability
Knowledge
Leadership
Learning
Freedom
Logic
Love
Loyalty
make a difference
master’s degree
Maturity
Meekness
Smoothness
Full attention
Modesty
Neatness
Obedience
Open minded
Optimism
organization
originality
Passion
Peace
insight
Perfection
Perseverance
Philanthropy
Piety
Happiness
Balance
Popularity
Energy
Pragmatism
Preparation
Privacy
Professionalism
Prosperity
Puntuality
Purity
Realism
Reason
Recognition
Break
Relaxation
reliability
Resilience
Inventiveness
Respect
Reverence
Rigor
Holiness
Sacrifice
Security
self control
Disinterest
self sufficiency
Sensitivity
sensuality
Serenity
Service
Sexuality
Nuisance
Simplicity
Sincerity
Ability
Solidarity
Spirituality
Spontaneity
Strength
Structure
Success
Support for
Compassion
teamwork
Temperance
Traditionalism
Tranquility
Confidence
TRUE
Comprehension
imperturbable
Utility
variety
Virtue
Vision
vitality
Wealth
victorious
wisdom
wonder
Zeal