Week 2 of Simplify Your Life challenge.
Define your personal values.
Hard task.
What are you about and what do you stand for? Slightly easier task.
I know what is right and wrong to me. I know what I like and don’t like. I know several people who inspire me with values I aspire to. But ask me to list and rank my core values… that requires a lot of thinking and looking within. These are the values that jumped off the page. They represent me now, and my vision for 2012:
Acceptance Gratitude Respect
Discovery Harmony Responsibility
Enjoyment Kindness Spirituality
Family Love Wellbeing
Now to choose and rank the 5 most important values to me right now… I thought this would be hard but it came pretty easily. Ranking #1 and #2 was difficult, but I am comfortable with my choice.
#1 Wellbeing In my heart, I want to rank Family first, but in my head I know that in order to be my best for them I need to look after myself first. To me, wellbeing encompasses all things that make me healthy, in mind, body and spirit. It is being healthy and happy, content with my beliefs and ‘filling my tank’ so that I can be my best me. It’s creating balance in my life.
#2 Family I love my family. I am privileged to have had a happy childhood and pretty amazing parents. And now I am blessed to have created my own special little family. Tough times have brought us closer and I feel truly blessed to have family members I also choose as friends. My children light up my life and I love being witness to their development and watching their lives unfold.
#3 Gratitude When my father fell ill, I was in awe of his strength and determination. But the thing that has stuck with me most is his love of life and raw honest gratitude. Since his passing, I find I am far more appreciative of little things, ordinary things that I used to take for granted. Life is a blessing.
#4 Enjoyment Passion for life, adventure. It’s letting go of the small stuff to make time to just enjoy. It’s working hard to play well. It’s being present in the moment. It’s happiness. It’s fun. It’s creating good times!
#5 Discovery Personal growth, life-long learning. A journey to better myself and manifest good things in my life.
I have enjoyed this challenge! It seemed daunting at the start but feels good to look at myself and my core values on paper. I am sure if I did this 12 months ago, my list would have been very different. But this feels good right now.
Mummy Can Do 
Really enjoying reading your pieces. Love that you put well-being first and were brave enough too. I think you write beautifully x
You have very peaceful values!! I felt calm just reading them!! Thank you for sharing 🙂
Once again this is beautiful Elissa! Everything you write strikes a chord with me in some respect 🙂
Your writing is lovely. Love reading your posts. Thanks for stopping by my blog and I really look forward to reading more of your journey over the year!
Thanks for your comments everyone! I am enjoying participating in the challenge and meeting like-minded people. It’s inspiring to feel connected.
Looking at them now, they are quite peaceful values aren’t they Paula. Which is funny because I normally feel like a headless chook running around! Maybe this is my year of calm 🙂 Thanks for stopping by.
oh this was beautiful – i love how you opened with and described your first value – so true!
Loved reading this post, and I loved the way you listed these values. I think wellness especialy is great – a happy and healthy mum = a happy and healthy family. Look forward to reading some more!
Thanks! It’s taken me a while to realize this!
Absolutely love and identify with your list and your descriptions. It is interesting how word choice plays into it – i love how well being looks now and wish I had put that on my list – it certainly is important enough to be amongst my main goals and aims and I adore “discovery” which would have been a better value word for me over growth as discovery includes that + adventure, openness etc – you have me rethinking my terminology and chosen words (not my values, but the words that better express them)
Thanks Deb. I have loved reading everybody’s link ups & reading the similarities and differences in values & wording! I labelled my values deliberately. I noticed many people listed Happiness, but to me Enjoyment was a specific word to describe actively participating in activities that make me happy… It’s all semantics really 🙂 Wellbeing feels empowering to me and I am really comfortable with listing it as a high priority value. I’ve really enjoyed the thought process & journey of each SYL challenge. Many thanks!