What Are Values?

The ultimate goal of every person should be to live a flourishing life by pursuing and achieving values. Today, I want to take a deep-dive into thinking about values. What ARE “values”? What does it mean to pursue them?

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The following article is an excerpt from my new book “Clearly Thinking” available now at: https://thinkercoach.gumroad.com/l/ClearlyThinking

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Values Involve Action

Often, when people think of “values”, it elicits religious or spiritual connotations like “family” or “tradition” or “charity”. But while these can be thought of as values, I am speaking much more broadly and more discreetly. Put simply, values are anything for which you take action in order to gain or keep that thing. This could be a physical thing like that dream house you are saving up for, or it could be a person like a spouse or child or close friend. 

Put simply, values are anything for which you take action in order to gain or keep that thing.

But, it can also refer to abstract things like “honesty” or “justice”. Again, it is something you ACT to gain or keep. So as with honesty, you have to act to gain and keep it. You gain honesty by actively thinking and identifying objective truths in the world and about yourself. You keep honesty by holding consistently to those truths once you identify them and do not evade, fake, or pretend that those truths are otherwise.