Values Inventory - work-related and personal values sorting

In this next exercise I would like you to examine and clarify your personal values. However let us first define what values are so we can be quite clear as to why we are doing this exercise. Basically values are concepts and criteria that you deem to be important in judging something, they literally give something meaning and that is why many career counselors refer to values as 'meaning magnets'. They act as attractors and are your personal compass that help you to navigate the right water. But just as you can have values that you move towards and seek out you can also have values that you want to move away from or that repel you. If you are unhappy in a job one of the reasons is that it might not be meeting some or all of your most important values. Quite possibly you are surrounded by moving away from values which can cause a tremendous amount of stress in our lives. Many values are actually hidden just below the surface of what psychologists call the sub-conscious mind. Many of us can state clearly our top two or three values but when it comes to making a list of ten or more we often feel stumped because we simply haven't taken the time to dig deep enough. The following exercises will assist in jump starting the process of clarifying work-related values for you. If the last time you thought of your values was in your teens it may be time to update your memory banks and rediscover just what is important to you now at this point in your life. Discovering ones values can be extremely liberating because by doing so you can learn to live a life that is purely in alignment with those values and this can mean that you don't have to do all those other things that rob you of time, energy and money and that have no possible connection to who you really are.

In the upcoming sections please try to answer them as honestly as you can and if you feel stumped just come back to the question a little later once you have had time to ruminate about it. The following exercises will be very revealing. Do take into consideration that the Signature Strengths profile may have revealed some important information to you and may contain some hint at what you put value on.

What was the best job/work that you ever did?

• What was good about it?
• What was bad about it?

What was the worst job/work you ever did?

• What was bad about it?
• Was there anything good about it?

What is your ideal kind of working day?

What sort of environment would you like to work in?

What specific activities do you like best?

Which of your talents and abilities do you prefer to use?

When you have thought through the answers to these questions, draw up a list of the main themes that have emerged. What aspects of work are important to you?. Make a list fro one to ten but if you cannot manage ten then try to list at least five to six things that are important to you and then we will fine-tune and refine them.

For each item on your final list, ask yourself: "What do I mean by this item specifically - what does it enable me to do or be, and what does it bring me in life". For example, if you have put 'good colleagues' ask "What do I mean by good colleagues"? Then ask, what does having good colleagues enable me to do or have, what does having good colleagues bring me in my working life. Think about what the benefits of each item are to you, this will help to reveal the real meaning behind these various aspects and values will start to emerge.

Once you have a list check for items that could be merged or modified, for instance - 'learning' and 'intellectual stimulation' may be the same thing. If so, put similar items together as one and be concise. When you have done this aim to make a list of at least 5 to 6 items.

Now imagine doing a job in which you could have all but one of these things. Which one would you be prepared to lose? Assuming you have six items on your list, put the number 6 next to the one item you would be prepared to lose. I know you may want to keep them all but the purpose of this exercise is to reveal the most important values to you in order of importance (you are not really going to lose them just re-juggle them).

Repeat this numbering process until you have prioritised all of them (that is you next start with number 5 value that would be least important). Once finished you will have a list of items (values) that go from 1 to 6 in importance, we will again refine this list shortly so we have not finished just yet.

Please take some time to look at this list and think about its impact on you. Revealed will be some pretty important values that need to be there for work to be worthwhile and enjoyable

Below is an extensive list of work related values to stimulate your thinking but you may of course add your own to the list. Some people may like to utilize the 'values sort cards' that came with your course, you can use these to highly refine your list, all the instructions are included in the pack.

It is also important to remember that we have 'moving towards values' which are highly motivating to us. Your list of one to six items above are all 'moving towards' values. However, we can also have 'moving away' values, these are things that are repellant to us. That may sound strange, why bother listing 'moving away' values. This is because if we decide to check a new career out we also need to know if the job involves any of our moving away values, if a job or career involves many of our top values but has more 'moving away' values we may still be heading for stress and dissatisfaction so we also need to be highly aware of what we don't want. so that we can move away from it.

Below is an extensive list of work and life related values (click the link to download the .pdf file) for you to whet your appetite but please remember that some of your values might not be on the list so don't discard them because they are not there.

Download values List here

Below are just a few more exercises for you to do that assist in revealing values.

On what five activities did you willingly spend most of your time on in the last month (we mean ones that you wanted to do and enjoyed)

• 1.
• 2.
• 3.
• 4.
• 5.

On what three (or fewer) areas do you spend most of your disposable income (we mean hobbies, interests, past-times etc)

• 1.
• 2.
• 3.
• 4.
• 5.

A variation of the above
If you found any of the above 'values' exercise too difficult to do or still feel confused, try doing the below where it is easier to arrive at a list a lot more intuitively.

This is an incredibly useful exercise that often creates "a-ha" moments, and almost always involves a reassessment of some parts of your life.

Allow yourself plenty of time for this. Think of five or more work or life experiences times in your life when you felt very fulfilled. Search for times when you've felt that your values have been validated. Try to choose as many different circumstances as you can.

Consider social life, hobbies and interests, but go for at least five and make them as different as they can be. Also make sure they are times when you felt good about yourself, because of who you were, and that your values were the important part of being happy.

Write down names for each, and put those pieces of paper on the floor or ground, in as wide a circle as you can make.

Now step into each spot in turn, and while you're there write down the values that were fulfilled in each situation, then rank the values from the most important down to the least. Take yourself back into each situation and experience it as strongly as you can as you stand in each spot.

You will have an order of the values fulfilled for each spot. Looking at them all, they may well be very similar, or they may not be. Don't be concerned either way.

Now step into one spot, thinking about the values that are important there and from that perspective consider each other spot in turn. Ask yourself: how does that situation feel from this perspective? For some people, the values of home and work are quite different, for example.

Allow yourself to feel the way each of the spots works with each other. Move slowly around the circle, considering each peak experience from each other spot. Take your time. It's important that you think things through, but also allow yourself to 'feel' them through.

When all the values feel right, and your intuition tells you that your unconscious mind has sorted everything out, step into the centre of the circle, and ask yourself: "What common values emerge here, is there a word (or words) that imparts a thread is weaving thru all of them?"

Pay a lot of attention to whatever comes to mind absolutely immediately - it's what you really have as 'core values'.

Whichever exercise you did what do some of your answers, if you have been honest and thorough, suggest to you about what's really important to you in your life. In light of the above you may want to go back to your list of prioritized values and make any adjustments to that list until you are satisfied that you have a list of one to six top values that simply have to be there in a work or life related situation for you to know that you would derive a sense of fulfillment at least most of the time. I would urge you to look again at this list at least two to three times in a weekly period and continue to make adjustments and fine tune it until you look at it again and it feels instinctively correct. Be a little introspective if necessary. By this I mean go inside yourself and check out if your intuition and/or heart also confirm for you that this list is right for you. Even if you only become clear on your top two values that absolutely have to be there for you then this exercise will have been worth doing.

By some fine tuning and refinement we would like you to arrive at a final list of five to six values.