I borrowed (aka: stole) most of this list from James Clear who generated his list from an organization called The LeaderShape Institute. I’m going to bold ten values that, as I sit here today, I think I would like to pass down to my children. You may decide that you want to focus on other values. And that’s okay.
I may even ultimately decide to emphasize fewer than ten. After all, focusing on too many things at once is pretty much the definition of being unfocused. It would be nice to boil it down to one overarching motto. For instance, my high school’s motto was “Commitment to Excellence.” It reminded us to do our best at whatever we did. My university’s motto was “The World is our Campus.” This motto reminds us to always be learning. Maybe through this exercise, my wife and I will develop a family motto that we want to instill in our children.
We probably should have done so long ago. But, oh well. The next best option is now.
The List
- Authenticity
- Achievement
- Adventure
- Authority
- Autonomy
- Balance
- Beauty
- Boldness
- Compassion
- Challenge
- Citizenship
- Community
- Competency
- Contribution
- Control
- Creativity
- Curiosity
- Determination
- Fairness
- Faith
- Fame
- Forgiveness
- Friendships
- Fun
- Growth
- Happiness
- Honesty
- Humor
- Influence
- Inner Harmony
- Integrity
- Justice
- Kindness
- Knowledge
- Leadership
- Learning
- Love
- Loyalty
- Meaningful Work
- Openness
- Optimism
- Peace
- Pleasure
- Poise
- Popularity
- Present
- Recognition
- Religion
- Reputation
- Respect
- Responsibility
- Security
- Self-Respect
- Service
- Spirituality
- Stability
- Success
- Status
- Trustworthiness
- Wealth
- Wisdom
What am I going to do with this list?
I’m going to review these values with my kids. We have something we call “Family Home Evening” every Monday. That’s where we gather together to discuss family business and share life lessons. As I review these values, I will try to put together some lessons on them. If you see hyperlinks, those will go to the points in my lessons. (If you don’t see hyperlinks, you can assume that I either didn’t get around to teaching these things to my kids or I didn’t get around to posting about them.)
To start, I will review this list with them and have them select 10 values that stand out to them and their top 3. My hope is that doing so will be a good introduction to discussing values.
Here is a downloadable copy of the list I will use:
