Identifying Personal Values to Help Shape Your Financial Future

Know yourself to advance yourself. There is always room for discovery, and once you know what you want most, it will be easier for you to shape your financial future.

What’s important to you? And how can money help you get there? Discovering that can be transformational and help you through the rocky parts and stay the course.

Discover your values about money. Do you crave freedom? Would you rather spend your time volunteering adding value to the world? Would life be more enriching if you could spend more time with your family, or travel?

Identifying personal values will be pivotal to finding your way to happiness and your commitment to wealth building.

Once you have an idea of what beliefs have been holding you back from financial success so far, it’s important to find out what’s important about money to you. Some might be things, but usually women care more about values and what they can give such as freedom, security, peace of mind, life with meaning, family, love, respect, health, friends, happiness, confidence, knowledge. What values excite and fulfill you? Your core values guide your decisions and actions. Once you discover what values are important to you, your life will have greater fulfillment.

Below is a list of values that will help get you started. If you want to go online, you will find many more. Relax. Take a deep breath. Then without any preconceived ideas, begin identifying personal values that are important to you. Perhaps some are related. Choose one word that best represents the group of related values. What is essential? Reduce your list to five or ten and prioritize them. Why are they important to you? Then let it sit. How do they feel? Are they consistent with who you are and what you want? Connecting your values to money is important in your next step of designing your life and making daily decisions as to how to finance your enhanced life.

Internal

Adaptability, Integrity, Accountability, Candor, Commitment, Compassion, Competency, Contentment, Dependability, Determination, Dignity, Ethics, Excellence, Justice, Honesty, Honor, Kindness, Loyalty, Peace, Responsibility, Respect, Roots, Sincerity, Transparency, Trustworthy, Truth

Order

Accuracy, Community, Consistency, Contribution, Control, Country, Decisive, Ecology, Economy, Justice, Lawful, Moderation, Organization, Simplify, Stability, Thorough, Timeliness

Achievement

Accomplishment, Capable, Challenge, Competence, Teamwork, Credibility, Determination, Development, Drive, Effectiveness, Empower, Endurance, Excellence, Famous, Greatness, Growth, Hard work, Improvement, Influence, Integrity, Intensity, Knowledge, Leadership, Mastery, Meaningful, Motivation, Performance, Persistence, Potential, Power, Productivity, Professionalism, Prosperity, Recognition, Reputation, Results-oriented, Significance, Skill
Sophistication, Stability, Status, Success, Talent, Victory, Wealth

Feelings

Acceptance, Affection, Belonging, Closeness, Change, Competition, Comfort, Confidence, Curiosity, Decisiveness, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Empathy, Excitement, Fulfilled, Gratitude, Happiness, Hope, Humor, Independence, Inspiring, Irreverent, Joy, Love, Openness, Optimism, Originality, Passion, Pleasure, Poise, Popularity, Power, Reverence, Satisfaction, Security, Serenity, Thankful, Tranquility, Welcoming

Health

Energy, Vitality, Beauty, Physical

Creativity

Art, Creation, Curiosity, Discovery, Exploration, Expressive, Imagination, Innovation, Inquisitive, Intuitive, Music, Openness, Originality, Uniqueness, Wonder, Enjoyment

Strength

Ambition, Assertiveness, Boldness, Confidence, Dedication, Discipline, Ferocious, Fortitude, Persistence, Power, Restraint, Rigor, Self-reliance, Temperance, Toughness, Vigor, Will

Freedom

Independence, Individuality, Liberty, Economic security, Location

Spirituality

Altruism, Awareness, Balance, Charity, Community, Connection, Consciousness, Contribution, Cooperation, Courtesy, Devotion, Equality, Faith, Fairness, Fidelity, Friendship, Generosity, Giving, Goodness, Grace, Inner Harmony, Humility, Loyalty, Maturity, Meaning, Nature, Selfless, Sensitivity, Service, Sharing, Spirit, Stewardship, Support, Tolerance, Unity

Courage

Bravery, Conviction, Fearless, Valor, Authority, Autonomy

Amusement

Adventure, Enthusiasm, Experience, Fun, Playfulness, Recreation, Spontaneous, Surprise

Presence

Alertness, Attentive, Awareness, Calm, Clear, Concentration, Focus, Silence, Simplicity, Solitude

External

Nice surroundings, Location, Travel, Mental, Intelligence, Brilliance, Clever, Common sense, Decisiveness, Foresight, Genius, Independent, Insightful, Learning, Logic, Openness, Realistic, Reason, Reflective, Smart, Thoughtful, Understanding, Vision, Wisdom