How to find your highest life values

Your highest life values dictate your priorities, steer your decision making, predict your friendships and relationships, and can mean the difference between a fulfilled life and an unfulfilled life. Understanding your highest life values can prevent comparison syndrome.

If you identify those top 3 values that are most important to the way you live and work, and realize that everyone else around you has a different set of highest values, you won’t compare yourself to others because you will understand what brings you happiness and drives you to overcome certain challenges and barriers is different from what brings others happiness and drives/ motivates them.

If people have different goals for a “successful” life, they will be driven to different achievements, and that' is OK… you don’t need society or your culture telling you what you should be doing. Allow your values to dictate you.

Understanding your top 3 values will help you:

1. Live a more fulfilled life

   Because when you are living by your values, that is how you gauge “success,” for example if your top value is family but you are working 70 hours a week and not seeing your family you will feel unfulfilled.

2. Stop comparison syndrome

   Because you will realize others accomplishments and journeys are for THEIR values, not yours, and you will see societies/ cultural values as separate from yours, ie if you value career higher than family, then you don’t need to be married with kids at this point. Remember values can change with time too.

3. Help you make important life decisions

   Should you take this job? Should you accept this promotion? Should you date this person? Should you move? Should you start your own company? The answer to all of these would be based on this one question: Will this align with my top values?

How do you find your top values? This is a simple exercise to help:

1. Think about where your focus is

   1. What are the top 3 things you think about most?

   2. What are the top 3 things you put your energy toward?

   3. What are the top 3 things you spend your money on?

2. Think about your happiest 3 moments

   1. What were you doing?

   2. Who were you with?

   3. What about this experience made you feel happy?

3. Think about your proudest 3 moments

   1. Why were you proud about this?

   2. Who did you share this news to?

   3. What about this contributed to that feeling of pride?

4. Think about your most fulfilling/ satisfying 3 moments

   1. In these moments, what need or desire was being fulfilled?

   2. How and why did this experience feel so satisfying?

   3. What goals are you working towards?

Once you figure out the answers, identify which core values they belong to, see below for examples of values. Then:

1. Prioritize them

2. Assess whether or not you are living by them, in the order of priorities

3. Figure out ways to allow them to co-exist

For example, my top priorities are (1) Living life to the fullest (ie with food, travel, adventures); (2) Reaching my highest potential (ie physically, intellectually, and career), and (3) Creative Expression/ Appreciation of Beauty. I love indulging in food, but I allow co-existence by being 90% on point with my activity levels, fitness, and diet, so I can be allowed the 10% indulgence in great food. I live by the cliche “I lift so I can eat”.

Share your highest life values with me on here, on my IG (my page is @drasmisanghvi ) or directly, tag me and the hashtag #MyHLV to share with the community!

Potential (but not exhaustive) List of Values:

Accountability
Accuracy
Achievement
Adventurousness
Altruism
Ambition
Assertiveness
Balance
Being the best
Belonging
Boldness
Calmness
Carefulness
Challenge
Cheerfulness
Clear-mindedness
Commitment
Community
Compassion
Competitiveness
Consistency
Contentment
Continuous Improvement
Contribution
Control
Cooperation
Correctness
Courtesy
Creativity
Curiosity
Decisiveness
Democraticness
Dependability
Determination
Devoutness
Diligence
Discipline
Discretion
Diversity
Dynamism
Economy
Effectiveness
Efficiency
Elegance
Empathy
Enjoyment
Enthusiasm
EqualityExcellence
Excitement
Expertise
Exploration
Expressiveness
Fairness
Faith
Family-orientedness
Fidelity
Fitness
Fluency
Focus
Freedom
Fun
Generosity
Goodness
Grace
Growth
Happiness
Hard Work
Health
Helping Society
Holiness
Honesty
Honor
Humility
Independence
Ingenuity
Inner Harmony
Inquisitiveness
Insightfulness
Intelligence
Intellectual Status
Intuition
Joy
Justice
Leadership
Legacy
Love
Loyalty
Making a difference
Mastery
Merit
Obedience
Openness
Order
Originality
PatriotismPerfection
Piety
Positivity
Practicality
Preparedness
Professionalism
Prudence
Quality-orientation
Reliability
Resourcefulness
Restraint
Results-oriented
Rigor
Security
Self-actualization
Self-control
Selflessness
Self-reliance
Sensitivity
Serenity
Service
Shrewdness
Simplicity
Soundness
Speed
Spontaneity
Stability
Strategic
Strength
Structure
Success
Support
Teamwork
Temperance
Thankfulness
Thoroughness
Thoughtfulness
Timeliness
Tolerance
Traditionalism
Trustworthiness
Truth-seeking
Understanding
Uniqueness
Unity
Usefulness
Vision
Vitality