The life of all people consists of tasks and circumstances that are a test of character and patience. Your life priorities are very important, for example, work, family, kindness, love or happiness. Each person has their own values that help move in the right direction.
Correspondence of actions and words to values fills life with meaning, harmony and happiness. Any contradictions in this aspect provoke irritation and anxiety. Own world, like the world as a whole, becomes dysfunctional joyless.
Identification of life priorities
Life values are guidelines that a person can rely on, lean in difficult moments and dark times. These are principles, ideals, beliefs, personality traits, as well as a sense of the truth of what a person follows. Loss of priorities causes an existential crisis (loss of meaning) and despair. This development is a real test for people.
Values can be compared with a compass. On them it is necessary to verify the steps that are taken in life. Problems with finances and relationships, difficulties with making decisions indicate a discrepancy between internal models of the world and reality, that a person doubts his desires and significant things. Certain attitudes are companions to a full and productive life.
Three areas of values
Priorities are individual and depend mainly on what a specific person was vaccinated in childhood in the family and school. The education of morality and other virtues is the key to a harmonious personality with the right priorities of life values.
Their complete list is huge. But there are three of the most significant parts of the values of a healthy person:
- Business, work, business.
- Personal life and relationships.
- Own development.
In addition, they share material and spiritual values.
Detailed list
Different priorities:
- Home, money, comfort. Orderly life. Close relationship with the sphere of family and leisure, as well as work, business and business.
- Family, children, mutual understanding. All long-term relationships in a couple, relatives and friends. Love is also present (caring, respect, attention).
- Love, relaxation, entertainment and excitement. Values of joy and enjoyment: travel, romance, games and so on.
- Education and professional development. As a rule, engaging in any business is not without experience and education. This applies simultaneously to the sphere of “business” and “own development”.
- The next example of life priorities is career, status, power. The value of social development, which implies obtaining new opportunities to do and influence and gaining a higher social status.
- Case, projects. This refers to everything that a person does in life: work, plans, ideas and projects.
- Health, beauty, harmonious development. This is the value of the body: appearance, figure, muscles, the ability to move. Refers to one’s own development and personal life.
- Personal growth, psychological and social skills. Everything related to personality development. Briefly, this can be called wisdom: maturity, attention to other people, thoughtful conclusions. Psychological skills include mastery of emotions, overcoming fears, clarity and purity of thinking. Social skills - behavior in society.
- Spiritual growth, the knowledge of life, the realization of destiny. Spiritual aspirations are evidenced by a life intended not only for oneself, high motives and the desire to leave something good behind.
What else?
Human life priorities list and other values include. Among them are the following:
- Moral.
- Tolerance.
- Creative self-realization.
- Hope.
- Kindness.
- Forgiveness.
- Discipline.
- Thanks.
- Altruism.
- Patience.
- Compassion for people and animals.
- Belief in others.
- Honesty.
- Optimism.
Values Problem
This is a universal question, as young people think about it, whose life experience is not rich, as well as more mature and experienced individuals. Mistakes are inherent in everyone, everyone can lose himself in the cycle of life. The guidelines in determining their own priorities should be: decency, kindness and the ability to listen to one’s conscience.
True and false values
The existence of entire civilizations depends on the ability to distinguish between these two types. Historical sources show us the disappearance of many cultures due to the fact that people forgot who they really are and preferred imposed values and fictional ideals.
But, as you know, someone else's experience does not teach anything. False values continue to destroy everything that needs to be protected: health, friendship, love. Most often, such priorities are imposed by close people and society as a whole. Awareness of error comes with bitter disappointment at the acquisition of what only seemed worthwhile.
How to prioritize life
To date, psychologists from around the world have developed a large number of techniques that can help diagnose individual life values. Many tests can be taken for free online. As a rule, this takes no more than 15 minutes. The format is classic: a list of questions with multiple choice answers or a list of statements with which you must agree or disagree. The result in the form of a list of core values can be obtained almost instantly. It is important to remember that there are no right or wrong answers. Likewise, there can be no good or bad results.
These methods provide an individual picture of priorities. As practice shows, the results cause a variety of feelings and often this is confusion. It may seem to the test person that an error has occurred, and the result obtained does not correspond to real life values. In such cases, repeated testing of other tests is recommended. This is useful not only by the selection of results, but also by the fact that in the process of answering questions a person can independently determine secondary and main things in life.
There is another method of determining the priorities of life values - introspection. All significant things are written on a sheet of paper or in a text document: that which a person appreciates, values and respects. At the same time, it is not necessary (and even better vice versa) to use the criteria and terms used. It is best to list all the words that come to mind.
Then a short break and / or change of type of activity is required. Then you can carefully study the list and choose from it the 10 most important things. Then the list is halved again. To simplify the work is possible by playing in the head all kinds of life situations.
At the end should remain the 5 most significant values. They need to be described in order of importance (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Often people have difficulty at this stage. Psychologists advise imagining a situation that would make it difficult to exist without which. This is the main priority. The importance of other things is not depreciated, but they are secondary.
Parenting
The issue of forming life goals and priorities is mainly relevant for newly-minted parents and those whose upbringing is for some reason only in their own hands. Most people want to raise a son or daughter, or be happy and well-developed themselves. Parents' own understanding of the correctness of priorities is a key factor in choosing the value system that children want to instill.
If the child’s life will do without injuries and severe shocks, ideas developed in childhood (about love, family, material enrichment, education, self-development and career growth) will be fixed in the subconscious for life. As a rule, in the family of workaholics and careerists grow up working and ambitious personalities who are actively striving for a certain status. When the priority of the family is love and loved ones, a child grows up who appreciates feelings and relationships.
Your priorities largely depend on life experience, what you have to face daily. It is pointless to convince the younger generation of the importance of family values if, for example, the father is not at home because of work, and the mother pays all attention to her friends. Parents should show what they think is right and appropriate, by example.
Rethinking
The formation of values begins almost from the first days of a child’s life and ends around the age of 22. But throughout life, different situations can cause a rethinking of priorities. Most often, we are talking about serious negative and positive emotional shocks and depressive states.
Changing life priorities can also occur due to the following events:
- marriage
- old age (as the life journey ends);
- own serious illness or illness of someone from relatives;
- loss / death of a dear person;
- unrequited love or feelings for a person who does not correspond to ideals;
- life crises (youth, maturity, existential);
- sharp changes in material situation (both poverty and the sudden acquisition of wealth);
- birth of children;
- global tragic events, the victims of which are a large number of people.
It happens that priorities change involuntarily. People intuitively choose the best path for future life. In cases of crises, the reason for rethinking is prolonged mental suffering. For example, the problem of life values becomes urgent for those who suffer from depression. Such people need a conscious approach, a clear desire for change.
Rethinking life priorities (an example of which is a career or relationships with people) is a breath of fresh air, a clean sheet. These are internal and external changes of a person and changes in life in general. Often they give people harmony and happiness.
About youth
In modern youth there is a substitution of life values. The reason is an abundance of temptations, as well as digital technology. The latter have become an integral part of life and have replaced many real and worthy things: reading paper books, live communication and so on. The depletion of feelings and emotions is equally noticed. The current generation, dependent on gadgets, over creativity and creation is dominated by consumption. There is another significant problem. According to the forecasts of sociologists, such a value as a full-fledged family will soon disappear.
Literature on the topic
Vital priorities are given a lot of attention in good literary works. With the help of these books, people can protect themselves from rash acts, discover new things and reconsider the significance of their own existence. Books about real, real values:
- The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery).
- "A street cat named Bob. How a man and a cat found hope in the streets of London ”(James Bowen).
- “The Second Life of Uwe” (Fredrik Buckman).
- "Welcome to the world, Baby!" (Fanny Flagg).
- The Great Gatsby (Francis Scott Fitzgerald).
- “Rita Hayworth and the Rescue from the Shawshank” (Stephen King).
- “When God Was a Rabbit” (Sarah Winman).
- “While I'm Alive” (Jenny Downham).
- “Magic cleaning. Japanese art of bringing order to home and in life ”(Marie Kondo).
- “Running after the wind” (Khaled Hosseini).
Life priorities, examples of which are: self-development, friendship, health and status - a compass for each person’s right way of life. All people choose what is closest to their heart and worldview. The main thing is that at the same time, a person should live harmoniously and coexist with other people, nature and the world as a whole.