HOW TO BE AUTHENTIC: FIRST STEPS - An Introduction

[Article by Dr. Craig Ashcroft http://craigashcroft.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-to-be-authentic-first-steps.html]

Our actions affect those around us and largely determine how our life is shaped. It is important that we recognise and accept that we are inseparable from the events and situations in our life. When we see and appreciate our connection to the world around us, we can begin to understand the control that we actually have over our own destiny.

Integrity and Character go hand in hand:

Character is the sum total of the result of all the choices and decisions we have made in our lives to date. It is about the relationship that we have with ourselves that is projected outwardly for others to see.

Integrity is the measure used to express our adherence to the moral principles and core values that we have set for ourselves. This adherence is identified by others as honesty, wholeness, trustworthiness and respectability.

Combining these two critical traits and projecting a character that is elevated by a conviction to sound principles and wholesome values is indeed our only pathway to true happiness.

The important point to be made here is that, in Shakespearean terms, if we cannot be true to thy selves then we cannot be true to others.

In order to be true to ourselves we need to:

• Realise and embrace our connection to the world around us; to our Environment. But we need to do this not from an observational and separatist perspective bit from an entirely immersed and unified way that enables us to take total responsibility for our Life and actions.
• Love, honour and Respect ourselves for the amazing beings that we are and to live up to our Integrity measures: our core Values, Principles, Ideals and Truths.

Another critical part of being true to ourselves is recognising that because our connection to the world largely determines how our life is shaped, we often try and fight against that connection rather than accept or even embrace it. We tend to do this in four primary ways:

• Repression: we put our efforts into push our experiences back. A good example of this is the proverbial “hiding our problems under the carpet” cliché.
• Projection: we choose to project negative or avoidance qualities onto the people around us. This is often exemplified as blame – “They didn’t give me the job although I was best qualified because they didn’t want someone who was male/black/short/gay/straight/etc”; i.e. it can’t have been anything you had done.
• Delusion: we ignore reality and opt to live in a make believe world manifested from misguided beliefs and perceptions. The most extreme end example of this is the stereotypical conspiracy theorist who believes they are best to withdraw and disengage from society because ‘someone’ is out to get them.
• Denial: we refuse to face Truths or Reality about the segments of our Lives and of our Selves that we feel are undesirable. This is the major single cause of mental and psychosomatic illness. Denial is like lying to ourselves. 

Let’s conduct a small exercise. I want you grab some paper and a pen (if you keep a Journal which I recommend you so – use that). Now I want you to ask yourself “What is it in my Life That I am Not Facing?”

Write down all the ideas, thoughts and feelings that go running through your head as you contemplate this.

Now sit back, read and interrogate what you have written. Are you ready to discover what it is in Life that is holding you back? Are you ready to accept that most of it is probably, most likely, to be YOU? Are you willing to take the required steps to address this – to become an agent of change?

It takes Courage to face your self-doubts, uneasiness and fears. But the only solution is to face them head on. Stop procrastinating. Move towards resolving your self-doubts, uneasiness and fears and you will be unstoppable.

Regular contributor John Ryan borrows from Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) to talk about 'friendliness'

So far on this Blog site we’ve talked about being authentic, discovering your core values, sharing important and meaningful issues with other Men, and accepting heartfelt challenge.

One question that keep arising in all this is about the nature of friendships and more importantly:

What is real, authentic friendliness?

According to regular Becoming Better Men contributor John Ryan, this is a somewhat complex and difficult question to answer. From John’s perspective, we need understand a few other things first before we can understand what real authentic friendliness is.

The first is friendship – or more precisely, the distinction between friendship and friendliness.

According to John, friendship is love without any physiological/sexual underpinning to it. But de draws a distinction even here – asserting that it is not the friendship that you understand ordinarily — the boyfriend, the girlfriend type friendship. For as John argues; to use the word friend in any way associated with physiology/sexuality is sheer stupidity. This is more about impulse and infatuation than it is about friendship.

John points out that if you act in friendship from this physiological/sexual space and reach the conclusion that you are in love - you are wrong. All you are experiencing is little more than a hormonal attraction. And the important factor here is that your chemistry can be changed and when this happens, this superficial hormonal experience that you have chosen to identify as love will also disappear.

So to reiterate, John says that friendship is love without any physiological/sexual underpinning to it – and this has become a rare phenomenon.

Too often in today’s world friendship is understood either in physiological/sexual terms, economic terms, or in sociological terms — or in terms of acquaintance, a kind of acquaintance. But John asserts that friendship in a true sense means that if the need arises you will be ready even to sacrifice yourself in the name of friendship. Friendship means that you are willing to make somebody else more important than yourself. In this sense, friendship is not a transaction, an exchange of bodily fluids or a communal relationship - it is love in its purity.

And achieving true friendship is possible even the way you are now. Even unconscious people can have such a friendship. And as you become more conscious of your being, true friendship starts turning into friendliness.

Friendliness has a wider connotation than friendship by itself. Friendship can be broken, the friend can turn into an enemy. That possibility remains intrinsic in the very fact of friendship.

For example, John reminds us of the Machiavellian idea: “Never tell anything to your friend which you would not be able to say to your enemy, because the person who is a friend today may turn into an enemy tomorrow”. He also reverses this to suggest that we should never say anything against our enemy, because our enemy can equally turn into a friend tomorrow.

From John’s perspective, Machiavelli is giving us a very clear insight: that our ordinary love can change into hate, our friendship can become enmity any moment. This is the unconscious state of man — where love is hiding hate just behind it, where you can hate the same person you love but not be aware of it.

Friendliness becomes possible only when you are real, you are authentic, and you are absolutely aware of your being. When you are in this space and love arises, it will be friendliness.

So back to the original question: “What is real authentic friendliness?”

It will need a great transformation in you to receive a taste of authentic friendliness. As you are, friendliness is a faraway star. You can have a look at the faraway star, you can have a certain intellectual understanding of its extistence; but it will remain only an intellectual understanding, not an existential taste.

And according to John, unless you have an existential taste of friendliness it will be very difficult, almost impossible, to make a distinction between friendship and friendliness. Friendliness is the purest thing you can conceive about love. It is so pure that you cannot even call it a flower, you can only call it a fragrance which you can feel, sense and experience - but you cannot catch hold of. It is there, your nostrils are full of it, your being is surrounded by it. You feel the vibe, but there is no way to catch hold of it; the experience is so big and so vast and your hands are too small.

As John stated at the outset: the question is very complex. But this not because of the question itself, but because of you. You are not yet at the point from where friendliness can become an experience. Be real, be authentic and you will know the purest quality of love — just a fragrance of love surrounding you always. And that quality of the purest love is friendliness.

Once Gautam Buddha was asked, “Does the enlightened man have friends?” and he said, “No.” The questioner was shocked because he was thinking the man who is enlightened must have the whole world as his friend. But Gautam Buddha is right, because the enlightened man cannot have friends because he cannot have enemies. They both come together.

Friendliness is unfocused, unaddressed love. It is not any contract, spoken or unspoken. It is not from one individual to another individual; it is from one individual to the whole of existence, of which man is only a small part, because trees are included, animals are included, rivers are included, mountains are included, stars are included. Everything is included in friendliness.

OUR CHOICES: THEY CAN HAVE UNLIMITED POTENTIAL OR THEY CAN TIE US DOWN

[By Becoming Better Men contributor Dr. Craig Ashcroft]

As we have discussed before on this Blog site, we all wear a Mask. We wear our Mask every time we communicate with those around us – even those closest to us: our partners and loved ones.

Generally our Mask is made up of our life experiences, our education and our upbringing; and it exists as a representation of how these three factors have shaped our perception of life.

We use our Mask to communicate to the world around us, to radiate a misconception of who we truly are and as such; our Mask becomes our primary excuse for avoiding our responsibilities and not fulfilling our purpose in this life. It becomes something we hide behind.

What would it be like if we could remove our Masks? What would it be like if we could communicate as men from the heart in an inspired way?

Let us look at this a little deeper by asking ourselves; “how can we be truly Authentic?”

The true answer to this can be a little disheartening; we can never be truly authentic – it is an unattainable goal.

However, we can pursue a path that enables us to become more and more Authentic in our Life; to strive for personal growth, to expand our horizons of experience and knowledge, and to aim at becoming the best version of ourselves that we can be.  

But we need to learn how to remove our Mask/s and wear only ourselves so that this becomes the representation of who we are in the world. If we do this, then our ‘True Face’, used in the correct way, can become a powerful tool that we can use to communicate with others, experience massive growth potential and fulfil our own life’s purpose. In this sense, our True Face becomes our primary vehicle of expression.

But even if we are wearing our True Face, our growth and who we continue to be is still determined by our experiences, education and perception of life. In this sense, even our own True Face can become a Mask: a static and false representation of who we are.

Look around you at the most authentic men you know – even they sometimes get caught up in the notion that their True Face is their the sole expression of who they are and that all that they can ever be is stated in that fixed image in time. In other words, even the best of us fall into the trap of allowing our projected selves to be expressed through the misrepresentation of a Mask.

So as much as we strive for authenticity, we must always be aware that if we do not keep ourselves in check, we may only be discarding one set of Masks for another. Therefore, in our eternal quest to be as authentic as we can be; we need to remain vigilant and be aware that the pathway to being authentic is not as straight, narrow and illuminated as we might like it to be.

Our biggest challenge in our quest to be as authentic as we can be is that with every step we take we have CHOICES. This is what sets us apart from all other living things – that as humans we understand consequence and can make choices in relation to those potential consequences. And as much as having the ability to make consequential choices is something that we should embrace as a gift, we should never forget that this gift can limit our possibilities too.

One Men’s Group facilitator I spent time with a while back used to tell us that “Awareness gave us Choice, and this was a great and powerful thing”. In many ways he is right. If we lose our Masks and allow ourselves to masters of our own destiny (in other words, if we become aware) then it stands to reason that we can now make sensible and informed choices about our growth potential – our pathway to becoming our most authentic selves.

The only problem with this position is that it relies on the assumption that in our state of ‘awareness’, we will always make sensible and powerful choices – the right choices. And here lies the problem. Do you see it?

With every choice we make there is a different consequence – and each consequence requires a different response. And how have we always responded to the consequences of our choices in the past? By putting on our Masks.

I’m sorry – the road to becoming as authentic as you can be was never meant to be easy and anyone who tells you it is is misguided themselves.

But while the road is not smooth, straight, narrow and sign-posted; it is not impossible to follow either. We can make choices and still wear our True Face – we just have to constantly reflect upon ourselves and the choices we make; and we should always look to those around us who offer to support us through heartfelt challenge.

In summary, we need to know that:

• Our choices can and do provide new opportunities for growth and change;
• But those same choices can also limit our opportunities for growth and change;
• However, it is not our choices that limit us but rather, the way we respond to them or apply them to our daily lives;
• If we express our choices with our True Face on, the potential for growth and change is limitless;
• If we express our choices behind the façade of a Mask, we inhibit our potential;
• The ultimate choice we have in making our choices is deciding whether we proceed wearing our True Face or a Mask.

Here is a simple rule to help guide you:

Anything expressed through a Mask is superficial

Anything expressed wearing our True Face is sincere, honest, heartfelt and has unlimited potential.

And you do want to make choices that are sincere, honest, heartfelt and have unlimited potential don’t you?

For further information or an opportunity to contribute/participate in our Group’s activities, phone/text Garth on 021512628 or Craig on 0275020095. Alternatively, subscribe to our Blog and post a comment.

12 GREAT PRINCIPLES TO ADD TO YOUR LIFE

[By Becoming Better Men contributors Dr. Craig Ashcroft, John Ryan and Garth Clarricoats]

As promised, this post provides examples of some great principles to add to your life to help you on your journey of growth.

We recommend that you incorporate these principles into your everyday life and document any changes you experience in a journal that can become a testimony to your growth and change.

1. Appreciate the positive qualities of the Masculine. It is time for you to step up and claim the right to be present. You should be proud to be a man and you should always maintain a high self worth that is not limited by what others may think or by why you perceive others may think.

2. Be aware of any suppression of your emotion. Be determined to drive yourself beyond your limits while maintaining realistic expectations that encourage you towards success. It’s time to let go of the shackles of fear, failure and inadequacy.

3. Be present with other Men who are going through life challenges. Get in touch with your feelings and develop your ability to communicate. Do not be afraid to express your needs and always be open to asking others for assistance. Accept Heartfelt Challenges from those around you and use those challenges to advance your cause.

4. Open yourself up in times of challenge and confrontation or when you are feeling hurt or upset. Let go of your insecurities, shame and self-doubts. Accept that there is no need to hide anymore.

5. Begin looking deeper within yourself and be willing to show and share intense emotions. Learn how to manage your anger and frustration in healthy ways without loss of power or sense of being weak.

6. Become Authentic!!! Uncover your sense of purpose and direction and develop your passion, fulfilment, satisfaction and enthusiasm for life. You can do this just by being you.

7. Stop feeling threatened or intimidated when confronted by the Feminine. Learn how to mutually respect, appreciate and celebrate the differences that femininity presents.

8. Empower yourself as a Man, engage actively in relationships, stand firm in disagreements, and engage in an open, non-competitive, non-threatening manner to seek mutual understanding and connection.

9. Discover the Sacredness in Sexuality. Learn how to open your heart to an expanded state of consciousness, a deep meaningful connection, and learn how to circulate the energy created there.

10. Develop your playfulness and humour, laugh at yourself, laugh out loud, lark around, tell a joke and enjoy life in all its frivolity.

11. Remember your innate ability to “Tinker” and start a project that has no tangible productive output.

12. Unveil the Power of the Masculine, that Raw Masculine energy, The Wild Man, The Savage and unleash it in Sport, Drumming, Sound, Posture and Movement.

For further information or an opportunity to contribute/participate in our Group’s activities, phone/text Garth on 021512628 or Craig on 0275020095. Alternatively, subscribe to our Blog and post a comment.

MEN GROW THROUGH HEARTFELT CHALLENGE

[By Becoming Better Men contributor Dr. Craig Ashcroft]

Part of the philosophy we have at Becoming Better Men is about achieving positive growth on the journey to becoming an Authentic Man.

Past articles on our Blog have talked about purpose, presence and the importance of values in our lives. At Becoming Better Men we believe that the first steps towards achieving a pathway to Authenticity include:

• Taking responsibility for ourselves and the consequences of our actions, words and thoughts;
• Understanding true masculinity and learning how to be present as a Man;
• Constantly redefining and pursuing our own life’s purpose and directing our precious energies in that endeavour;
• Networking with other men and openly talking about quality life issues;
• Playing an active and positive role in empowering our communities.

In the next Post I will talk about some great principles that you can add to your life to help facilitate positive growth and change. These principles, used in conjunction with some of the information you’ve already read on this Blog, will really help ‘kick start’ your journey towards being an Authentic Man.

However, today I want to focus on one of the most critical tools for change you are ever likely to encounter:

HEARTFELT CHALLENGE.

“It is a heartfelt challenge to awaken to your True Identity which is more wonderful than any of us can imagine, easier to see than anything in the world, and the paradigm of sanity and health” (D. Harding, 1998).

In his first letter, the Apostle Peter sent a Heartfelt Challenge to remind hard-pressed Christians of their rich identities in Christ, and to encourage them to face their sufferings with ‘Christlike’ character.

Now you don’t have to be a Christian or have Christian ideals to appreciate the sentiment expressed by Peter in his letter. A Heartfelt Challenge is one given in love and sincerity with the intent to help facilitate growth and purpose.

It is a challenge given by someone who wants to help you become the best version of yourself that you can be.

And the important thing about a Heartfelt Challenge is that, as is evident by Apostle Peter’s example, you know that the person making it would willingly walk the same path with you should you accept their challenge.

This is important because if we look back on our lives we, as Men, know that our biggest moments of growth occurred at a time when we were challenged to the very core of our existence – pushed to the very edge of our ‘comfort zone’. The death of a loved one, a personal crisis, the experience of living through a natural disaster, the loss of a career or business – these types of events often lead to the biggest and most dramatic changes in our lives and it is often from these changes that we undergo our most significant moments of growth.

A Heartfelt Challenge provides the same possibility but in a supported and encouraged way. A Heartfelt Challenge should still see you pushed to your ‘edge’, making you step outside your ‘comfort zone’ to face new and often frightening possibilities (opportunities). The difference is that you face the challenge knowing that you are not alone – that someone has cared enough about you to commit to walking alongside you and sharing in your growth experience. History has shown that Men respond in powerful and meaningful ways when confronted with a Heartfelt Challenge.

REMEMBER: MEN GROW THROUGH HEARTFELT CHALLENGE

So how should we respond when given the opportunity of a Heartfelt Challenge?

Here are some basic tenets:

• See every challenge in life as an opportunity to grow;
• Have the courage to face your fears;
• Become a Master of change;
• Praise, inspire, and act from strength firmly focused in the Heart;
• Have an open mind and be responsible for your words, thoughts and actions;
• Be aware that our perception is limited and that there are always greater possibilities waiting to be claimed;
• Be kind to yourself, smile, and re connect to life;
• Know that your life is your creation.

For further information or an opportunity to contribute/participate in our Group’s activities, phone/text Garth on 021512628 or Craig on 0275020095. Alternatively, subscribe to our Blog and post a comment.

Angry Men: relationships, Child Support and our responsibility

[Some thoughts formulated by Becoming Better Men contributor Dr. Craig Ashcroft]

With ever increasing statistics of family violence, male suicide, child abuse, crime, and alcohol and drug addiction in our communities; society is in a constant upheaval and our families and children suffer.

From a male perspective, and accounting for the significant role men play in facilitating these various problems, it is evident that society needs an approach that deals with the real issues that men face in their world today:-

• Men have had little or no positive role models;
• Children are growing up in ‘Fatherless’ societies;
• Men are generally unlikely to deal with personal issues until they reach a crisis point;
• Networking amongst men is quite low when compared to women;
• Long term involvement in programs is rare for Men, and when the ‘crisis’ is able to be handled they leave (or are excluded);
• Understanding and expressing emotions in a constructive way is generally a foreign concept to most men.

The Men’s Movement for change is a relatively new phenomenon in our world when compared to the maturity of the established global Women’s movement. This has created an unintentionally unbalanced and unhealthy view of society’s problematic issues as they pertain to the role of Men - and this has resulted in a universal response that, until very recently, painted a generalised deficit model of the role of the masculine in society.

Fortunately there is genuine drive for change in the air that presents a more balanced and fairer outlook for Men in the future. For example, Domestic Violence has now become Family Violence in an attempt to address the stereotypical gender bias that has always assumed the perpetrators to be male and that the victims female.

Nevertheless there are areas that still need addressing. For example, child shared care arrangements is an increasing occurrence that must be seen as being beneficial for both parents and children alike. But we still have a long way to go as many fathers continue to believe that they remain disadvantaged in terms of the contact they are able to have with their children after separation, and by their ability to financially support themselves and their children in a positive way.

Part of this financial hardship is due to the uncompromising and generally punitive way Child Support payments are calculated. In most cases these calculations do not account for the Father’s:

• current living situation and other commitments he has;
• informal financial commitment to his children for whom the calculations are made;
• access to those children and the time he is able to commit and spend with them; and
• love for his children.

Further, in countries like New Zealand, the agency responsible for calculating and collecting Child Support Payments, namely Inland Revenue, continues to have gender biased policies that disfavour the father regardless of whether he is the liable parent (the one who pays Child Support) or the custodial parent (the one receiving the Child Support).

The resulting consequence of this has been the emergence of “Angry Father’s” groups that seek to advocate a fair and just change to the system but instead, paint an unintentional image of Men seeking to avoid their obligations and commitments (which we know isn’t the case at all).

But it is one thing to recognise a problem and establish “Angry Father’s” groups to help scream and yell for the need for the ‘system’ to change; but it’s another thing to actually do something positive yourself towards creating that change.

The first step towards this notion of positive change is to recognise and accept your own role in the equation:

• Men need to improve their communication skills. It doesn’t take a Rocket Scientist to tell us that communication between Men and Women in today’s world is as much in its infancy as it has ever been. We all know that communication is one of the primary causes of modern relationship breakdowns. And Men – you are one half of that equation!
• Men need to refrain from allowing their children to be used as pawns in the power struggle around their relationship breakdown. Too often I hear Men say that it’s the Women who use the children in this way. Again, it doesn’t take a Rocket Scientist to explain that it takes two opposing sides to create a power struggle. So even if you are right (and I’m not saying that you are), for a struggle to exist - you have to have chosen to engage in it.
• Men need to also learn to ‘hear’ the other side – the feminine perspective. Men and Women are different and these differences become no more apparent than when we are in conflict with each other. Our conflicts are communicated in two completely different narratives: His and Hers. And as much as I would like to extend a call out to all the Women out there to stop and actually ‘listen’ to your Man’s narrative, you Men are just as responsible for being deaf to the other voice.

So, in summary, the world may not be as balanced and as fair as we Men sometimes wish it should be. But is that about reality or perception?

And how do we, as Men, create change?

For starters, you can take up today’s heartfelt challenge:

Take responsibility for yourself and for the consequences of your actions, words and thoughts (as you cannot be responsible for the actions, words and thoughts of somebody else).

For further information or an opportunity to contribute/participate in our Group’s activities, phone/text Garth on 021512628 or Craig on 0275020095.

NEXT MEETING ON 10 SEPTEMBER AT NEW LOCATION

Phone/text Garth on 021512628 or Craig on 0275020095 to find out more.

The first step to becoming a better Man: Define Your Core Values

by Brett & Kate McKay (abridged)

When I look at photos of men from my grandfather’s and even my dad’s generation, I can see a sense of purpose in the eyes of those men. Yet when I look at men today, I often don’t sense that kind of steely focus. Instead, I see dudes who are just sort of drifting along whichever way life pulls them.

There are numerous factors why men are just sort of drifting by today. Changes in the economy and societal shifts in regards to gender are definitely two major factors. But, let’s be honest. There’s not much a man, let alone a man stuck in neutral, can do about these things. So, today we’re going to focus on something that we all have the power to control: our core values.

The Importance of Clearly Defining Your Core Values

Defining our values gives us purpose. When you don’t know or you haven’t clearly defined your values, you end up drifting along in life. Instead of basing your decisions on an internal compass, you make choices based on circumstances and social pressures. You end up trying to fulfill other people’s expectations instead of your own. And before you know it, life has passed you by and you haven’t even started to live. Trying to be someone else and living without core values is down right exhausting and leaves you feeling empty and shiftless. Conversely, living a life in line with your core values brings purpose, direction, happiness, and wholeness.

Defining our values prevents us from making bad choices. Perhaps you have a vague idea about what you value. But if you haven’t clearly defined your values, you can end up making choices that conflict with them. And when your actions conflict with your values, the result is unhappiness and frustration.

Defining our values gives us confidence. I’ve noticed that when I take the time to really think and meditate upon what I value as a man and then write those things down, I’m more likely to have the courage and confidence to make choices based on those values. There’s something about actually writing down your values that makes you more committed to living them.

Defining our values makes life simpler. When you’re sure of your core values, decision making becomes much much simpler. When faced with a choice, you simply ask yourself: “Does this action align with my values?” If it does, you do it. If it doesn’t, you don’t. Instead of fretting over what’s the best thing do to, and standing shilly-shally in times of crisis, you simply let your internal compass guide you.

How to Discover Your Values

1. Get nice and relaxed. Go to a quiet room and sit in a big comfy chair (maybe even sit in your closet; something about small spaces helps you think), grab the fishing pole and spend an hour or two casting your line, or take a walk on a nature trail or around your neighborhood. Just do whatever works for you.
2. Have the proper tools. Have a pen and paper handy so you can write down your values as they come to you. I don’t recommend using a computer to do this as it’s pretty easy to get distracted from the task at hand. Write on something you won’t accidentally throw away and that will last for many years to come.

3. Ask yourself this question: “What’s truly important to me as man?” Once you’re nice and relaxed, simply ask yourself what’s truly important to you. Think about those moments in your life when you felt completely whole and fulfilled as a man. Think about the times when you’ve been the happiest. If nothing comes to you at first, don’t worry. Just keep thinking.

4. Write down whatever comes to you. When you have a moment of insight about what’s important to you, write it down. Don’t self-censor yourself. Be completely honest during this process. No one else is going to see this, so don’t list the values that you think “should” be on your list. If it comes to you, write it. You’ll be able to go back and edit the list in the next step. For now, just do a total brain dump.
Also, don’t worry about prioritizing them yet. We’ll do that later. Our goal right now is to just get down whatever comes to you.

5. If you have more than five values, eliminate some. Think hard about what you truly value in life. Put a star by the values you’re sure about. Then take the ones that you feel are important, but aren’t sure if they’re top 5 material, and put them in pairs. Think about two of those values side by side, and ask yourself which of the two is more important. Then eliminate the other. Keep pitting the survivors against each other until you’re down to 5. If some of the values you listed are just two words describing the same idea. Combine them.

6. Prioritize. Once you whittle your list to five core values, prioritize them in order from most important to least important. Ideally, your core values compliment each other, but there might be times when two or more conflict. When that happens, which value will trump? If you know this before that choice presents itself, you’ll know how to proceed. And even if your values conflict in the future, look for creative ways to combine them. For example, family might be your top priority, but so is volunteering. When you have the choice of spending time with your kids or signing up to help at a charity event, do both by bringing the kiddos along with you.


If you’re having trouble getting started, I’ve provided a list of values that you might consider. The list isn’t exhaustive; there are literally hundreds of values you could have.
Adventure
Balance
Confidence
Control
Creativity
Discipline
Education
Faith
Family
Financial Security
Friends
Freedom
Fulfillment
Forgiveness
Fun
God
Growth
Happiness
Health
Hope
Honesty
Humor
Independence
Integrity
Kindness
Knowledge
Marriage
Peace of mind
Power
Progress
Reason
Security
Self-reliance
Service
Spirituality
Strength
Success
Truth
Wisdom