Many times the root of our personal inner conflict is the result of incongruent values. Do your words and thoughts consistently match you actions? Do the people you interact with have similar values? Does your career support or undermine the person you desire to be.

In this sense the things we find valuable are not necessarily material things. Instead you can think of them as emotional states or items that create states. Some possible values may be:

Security
Adventure
Change
Love
Solitude
Reverence
Excitement
Personal growth
Family Time
Creativity
Friendship
Risk
Learning
Recognition
Helping Others

You would not want to take a person who holds solitude as a high personal value to event where this person would have to interact with a large number of people over a long period of time.

For a career, a person who highly values risk and financial rewards would do well in a commission based sales job whereas a person that values security and might not be as happy. This does not mean that the security minded person would not make it as a sales person. Remember, here we are talking about inner value conflicts.

In relationships the person who sees adventure as a high value item may eventually conflict with a spouse prefers life at home. Very few of us bother to ask our potential mate to identify the things they value most in life.

Creating your value list

For the next five minutes brainstorm your own value list. Think about your life and the things that are important to you.

What values do you hold so strong that you will be willing to undergo some pain to keep them?

You may want to have your spouse or significant other complete this same exercise and then compare what you both created.

Afer you complete the exercise, share with us here how it went for you. Any suprises? What were some of your top values?