On Tuesdays I write about Living my Legend. This section is inspired by The Alchemist and is an account of my journey of living my potential.
This is the first post in this section. I announced it over three weeks ago and it has developed in my mind since then. Maybe it was foresight, but tuning in to my legend and making the inner connection have been on my mind ever since. I have spent time to reconnect and things are becoming very clear. I expect that I have a lot of material for posts, but I will only post them when they are ‘ripe’.
Personal values
I have five personal values that I regard as my core values. They represent the things I want to experience in this life. The first time I actively discovered these personal values was 6 years ago, during an intense session with a guided meditation. At that time I recognized them, but did not know what to do with them and how they could be useful.
I revisited these values in other training and meditation sessions and my understanding of what they mean for me grew. It’s good to revisit them as they will mature over time, but for now, these are my five personal core values:
- Love
Love is a central theme in my life. I need love and have a lot of love to give. Love for life, for people, for animals, for nature, for beautiful things, for the things I do and so on. But the most important is the love for my family and friends. - Fun
I’m here to have lots of fun. I love laughing and I love to do fun things, with other people or alone. Time is too precious not to have fun, but it’s so easy to let this one slip. Sometimes we’re just too serious and it’s so easy to get caught in that atmosphere. I’m dedicated to have fun and not let this happen anymore. Not to me, and if I can, not to anybody. - Freedom
Freedom is a value that’s really strong within me. Freedom is something I value on all plains of life, from the physical freedom of movement to the mental freedom of thought and decisions. This value sets a clear directions for me, both to actively attain freedom and to prevent me from doing things that might limit my freedom in the future. - Authenticity
I value things that are real and authentic. The things I do, think and say are in connection with who I am. Knowing my values and having a clear direction in my life are part of that and helpful at the same time.
There’s so much outside pressure in the form of people, companies, government, schools, church, and many other institutions. They all try to tell you who to be and how to live. Having the inner connection is essential in withstanding that pressure and choosing to be who you want to be, and choosing to do what you want to do. Not what THEY want you to do. - Growth
I aim for growth in most aspects of my life. My interest on personal development is rooted in this value. I’m fascinated by potential and love the energy and creativity associated with fulfilling that potential. Both for myself and when helping others to achieve growth.
Using the values
Over the past couple of weeks I used these values as a foundation for my mission statement, and subsequently for guidelines for several areas of my life. Following down that path I was able to set very specific goals that could be traced back to my personal core values. The Early Bird Challenge was a great example of this.
The next post in this section will be about my mission statement.
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You can be an Original too!
Aarthilal
Wed 2007.09.05
Hello!
I’m also a big Paulo Coelho fan and I don’t know if you heard about his blog
http://www.paulocoelhoblog.com
I’ve started as a fan and now I’m collaborating with him and thought that you would like to enter his universe.
Check the blog, if you want, or subscribe to his newsletter
http://www.warriorofthelight.com/engl/index.html
You’ll see a community of warriors of light sharing ideas, dreams and most importantly following their personal legend.
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
“I am convinced
that no one loses anyone,
because no one owns anyone.
That is the true experience of freedom:
having the most important thing in the World
without owning it.”
See you there and have a great day!
Aart
John W. McKenna
Wed 2007.09.05
Lodewijkvdb
You’ve been tagged for the “Does Most Leadership Suck Challenge”. Check the link for details.
Take care…
JWM
My Get Things Done List » Blog Archive » This is my mission statement [How to be an Original]
Tue 2007.09.11
[...] to mission statement Last week I wrote about my five personal core values. These values are the things I want to experience in my life. They are the foundation for a mission [...]
Rock Your Day
Wed 2008.05.21
[...] mean that I love everything I currently do. I’m working on aligning my activities with my values and mission, but it’s not an easy process and it requires quite a lot of attention and [...]
Rosa Say
Fri 2008.05.23
Aloha Lodewijk, I read this a moment ago right after your About Page, and they I went back to the comment you had left for Amy Palko on Lives Less Ordinary about photography perspective (http://snurl.com/2a707), and I must tell you how remarkably strong your value alignment is; it leaps off the page with such integrity.
I thought I’d share with you that the Hawaiian value of authenticity is called nānā i ke kumu, and it translates to “look to one’s source.” You are doing that here and wherever you visit so exceptionally well, and just knowing you for such a short time (via Twitter) I had to let you know that, about the immediate impression you make. You ‘walk your talk’ of authenticity in an amazingly clear way, and I am thrilled to have this chance to know you.
I so look forward to learning more from you. The website link I left with my name in this comment will tell you more about my mana‘o (feelings and beliefs) about nānā i ke kumu if you are interested.
Rosa Says last blog post..Let’s Talk Story: What’s new with you?
Emy
Wed 2008.06.18
Family, career, love, fun and rest are the tings I praise most of all
Klaus
Thu 2009.06.25
Hi Lodwijk,
thank you for you blog. It’s quite interesting to follow your way of self development. I still haven’t established my personal values, or rather I haven’t verbalized it yet but I’m after the reading couple of books by Edward de Bono and his theory that human brain works like a self-organizing pattern system organizing all information into patterns. Hi proves that the hardest task for the brain is to change the patterns to force the brain for the creativity. I think that establishing the personal values may fossilize some patterns in our brain that will be hard to change in the future. The other question is if we really need to change them as they are named as core values. But anyway it would be good to add some comment to the personal values that they needs to be periodically verified in certain period of time. What do you think?
Lodewijk
Mon 2009.06.29
@Klaus – Thanks for your thought provoking comment. I took a couple of days to think about it.
I think that we have a set of core values that change very little over time, they do change though. Either through experience, or simply through aging, I’m not sure how exactly. I just don’t believe they are set in stone, not from birth or any other moment in time. They evolve over time with who we are, who we become and what happens to us. As such it’s a good exercise to rediscover your core values every couple of years. You may find that they have changed slightly. Maybe you’re ranking them in order of importance, and the order has changed. Or you actually have six of them, and have never verbalized the sixth value. That last one happened to me. When I first discovered them, I only got to choose 4. About 6 years later, I added a fifth value -> Growth. As this was one of my core values too.
As far as De Bono is concerned, he has great techniques for creative thinking and creativity in general. And for changing thinking patterns his techniques are awesome. The way he describes how his techniques work, combined with how the brain works make it valuable. As far as the core values are concerned though, I’m not convinced that they are thinking patterns. I feel the same about emotions. I know that we gain more understanding of how the brain works, but why we experience emotions like love, sadness, excitement or why we feel a deep connection to certain values cannot be explained in this way. I’m not convinced that the brain, and its inner workings, is the only originator of our personality, our being. But that too, is a personal conviction, and impossible to prove.
I hope this clears up some of my thoughts and feelings about this topic for you. How do you think and feel about this?