Hello and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I want to talk about living by your core values. So, here’s the thing, hopefully, if I ask you, what are your core values? You have an idea of what those might be. Your personal core values are thing that you believe are most important in life. These principles guide and dictate how you live your life and how you make decisions. Developing your personal core values is a really important exercise that can help you clarify what is most important to you. Knowing your personal core values ensures that you commit better decisions, set boundaries and help you live a far more, sort of, authentic feeling in life. And so, if you don’t know what your core values are right now, that’s OKAY. There are ways to kind of, and I’m going to talk about ways to develop and to sort of help you live by your personal core values. And these might change over time. Don’t think that because you’ve OKAY, I’ve, I’ve got core values check, and I should live by them. They may change just because of the world around your things that happen. But first thing to do is clarify what’s most important to you.

Developing your core values as an important first step. But how exactly do you accomplish this? Core values guide how you live your life and make decisions. There are many ways to develop your core values. One way is to think about what you believe in and what’s most important to you. What about, what do you stand for? What do you value most in life? Another way to think about developing your core values is to look at your past behavior. What principles have you consistently upheld in your life? Once you developed your personal core values, it’s really important to let them be, sort of north star, guide you. It’s important to live by them. And this means making decisions based on your values and setting. And setting boundaries based on your values and living in alignment with your values. This will help you make better decisions, right?

One of the benefits of developing and living your personal core values is that it will help you make better decisions. When you know what your core values are, you can make decisions based on those values. They can help you avoid making decisions that are not in line or in tune with what’s most important to you and guide you down a different path. Decision making therefore becomes much easier when you know what you stand for. When you clearly understand your core values, you can use these to guide all your decision making and any decision-making process that you create. It can help making tough choices with confidence and clarity. Not only that, it helps you set boundaries. I’ve always talked about, as an introvert, how important boundaries are. And setting boundaries help you protect yourself from people and situations. It can help you identify relationships that are not healthy for you. If a relationship is not in line with your core values, it might be time to set some boundaries, or even end the relationship. And part of this is when you’re clear about what’s important to you, you then start to breathe life into those values that are quarter you and help you avoid your living a life that feels little off a little inauthentic or out of alignment with your values. And then for living within this alignment, you’ll find more meaning of purpose in your life. When you live a life that is true to your values, you’re more like to feel fulfilled and satisfied.

Now, on the other side, living by your core values, can sometimes mean making sacrifices. For example, there may be a time where you must give something up because you want to uphold your values. This can be difficult sometimes, but it often necessary to help you live a life that is true to your values. And don’t get me wrong, not all sacrifices are equal. Some may be small, such as giving up a material possession, how the sacrifices such as giving up a relationship or a job might be far more significant. But all sacrifices require you to give up something to live by your true values and stand by your values.

Now, when you have these values and you know what they are on your crystal clear on them, there will be challenges. There will be occasions that prove difficult to uphold your values. You may be tempted to give up or cave in to pressure. But if you want to live by your values, you should be aware that these challenges will come up. They are not always negative. They can actually help you grow and become stronger. So even though challenges may be complex, they can ultimately help you lead a more fulfilling life. So just talking about that, these are ways that can support you in developing and living by your personal core values. And this, in return, were enabled you to lead a more fulfilling life.

Thank you for listening. This is Janice at thecareerintrovert.com, helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.