Thursday, January 12, 2012

Simplify Your Life Week Two #syl12


My top value is This week's Simplify Your Life challenge is focusing on your personal values. Deb does a wonderful job of highlighting what values are and are not. Also, like last week, she has questions to ask yourself to help with the process of finding your core values. Last week's challenge link up is open too, so check out other's last week's posts while you're over there.

I've always had strong values with most focused on equality and helping those who may be less fortunate in certain aspects of their lives than me. It's these values that have led to my studies and charity help. I firmly believe in helping others and can't stand it when I hear of people taking advantage of the underdog. 

These values have helped me, and others, throughout my life. Unfortunately, I've also been taken advantage of due to the nature of my values. Since having children I've found my values have changed, evolved, some are stronger while others are weaker. My values are no longer just about me, they're also focused on what I want for my family and children. 

Deb posted a printable with a collection of value words (found here). To start the process I went through them and circled (or squared) the ones I believe represent me the most. I ended up with forty-five words. Obviously these aee more general values and I'm a value slut.
My process
While reading through the words I'd chosen I realised a lot of them were values I solely held for lufflump and sesame. So I went through again and circled those values in red. Twenty were now circled meaning I was down to twenty-five value words. I next crossed off those I believe I could compromise with. Still I was left with ten;
To narrow it down to five values I asked myself what I couldn't compromise on. Five popped out at me;
I may have sort of cheated as these include and evolve into other values. 
My top value. Love to me involves family and friends as well as material and sentimental possessions and other things like music, movies, activities, food and events. Least of all, loving life. Loving life and experiencing life is extremely important to me. Love is also positive and involves dedication and communication. I value love and everything it brings into our family, our household is full of love.
My second most important value is self development. In 2012 I aim to focus on this value for myself and my family. I believe that self development is extremely important. It's important to grow, enhance and learn. I'm a firm believer that a lesson can be learned through everything in life and can be personally used to develop yourself into the person you would like to be. I'll be reading up on Buddhist books this year to help my self development.
Thirdly, I value honestly with self and others. Honesty isn't always easy but highly respectable. To be honest with yourself helps to be authentic while being honest with others helps to have true relationships. Relationships should be based on trust and honesty, as well as many other values. I hope to pass this value onto lufflump and sesame as they grow. 
Next, I value acceptance. Not to be mixed up with tolerance, acceptance is accepting other's, faults and all. It's accepting that people are different and live differently. It's accepting that differences are okay as are similarities. Acceptance also means accepting the good and bad in life. To me, acceptance dispels racism, sexism, ageism and promotes equality and respect. 
Lastly, I value freedom. Freedom for choice and how fortunate we are in this country to have vast freedom. Freedom, for me, also means being free from anxiety; not letting anxiety take hold of my freedom again. I value being able to openly make adequate choices for myself and family.
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I thought this week's challenge would be easy but it took me two days to complete. 
How did you go? Can you easily narrow your values down to five?

14 comments:

  1. Wow, you have put so much thought into this. Best wishes for achieving everything you want in 2012.
    xx

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  2. It was a hard one, wasn't it! I think we have similar values and I am wanted to read up on Buddhism this year too. Will enjoy following (and perhaps learning) from your challenge this year. Nice to meet you!
    Kate (Simply Kate)

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    Replies
    1. It was hard! I'm finding the mission statement just as hard. Not giving up though :)
      I'm so glad to be experiencing this challenge with you throughout 2012.
      xxx

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  3. It took me just about the whole week to get my five top values into order of importance. It certainly wasn't an easy task! I have enjoyed reading through your top five.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you!
      I hope the mission statement is easier for you, unlike it is for me ;)

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  4. What a beautiful image to end on. We have similar values - where would our worlds be without love? Thanks for sharing.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Pip! Love is just so wonderful :)
      xxx

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  5. A value slut - I love it!!! I am so one of those two. I found it seriously hard to narrow down my values too. But I really enjoyed reading your top 5!

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    Replies
    1. Hahaha I don't think there's anything wrong with being a value slut :)

      Thanks for commenting :)
      xxx

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  6. Love it Ames - especially what you write about acceptance (and such a distinction from tolerance). also loving our new header and your blog vibe now.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Deb. It's getting harder and harder each week but I'm really enjoying the challenge!

      Thank you - I'm loving it too :)
      xxx

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  7. Love how you narrowed these down with the filter of "things you could not compromise".

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    Replies
    1. It was the only way to narrow it down further! Not the easiest challenge, but well worth it!

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