So yet again, somehow, another week has gone round and it’s time to try to answer the fourth of the five questions (series 2) I posed a few weeks back.

Question 4. What are your top five personal values?

As usual; this is a lot harder than it might at first appear.

The Best Year Yet methodology for personal development provides a long list of personal values which one is supposed to categorise under five headings: Very Important, Important, Quite Important, A Little Important, Not at All Important. The idea being that one’s goals should be things that support one’s most important personal values. The complete list is:

Abundance Achievement Autonomy Belonging Challenge Closeness Competition  Contact Contribution Creativity Excellence Excitement Fitness Freedom Friendship Fun Growth

Health Helping Others Honesty Independence Influencing Integrity Involvement Justice Kindness Learning Love Loyalty Making a Difference Order Passion Peace Perfection Power

Recognition Respect Responsibility Risk Security Self-Expression Self-Respect Serenity Spirituality Spontaneity Stability Status Success Tradition Trust Variety Wealth

Now I’m not convinced there’s a whole bunch of difference between some of those, nor am I convinced some of them are actually personal values. Moreover it seems to me that groups can be encapsulated into more meaningful values.

But then another way of looking at the whole question of personal values is to understand the mottoes which resonate and by which one tries to live. Now I’ve talked about mine before, most recently in this series last week. And in fact when I thought about it many of my my top personal values do come out of my mottoes. I guess that shouldn’t be surprising; indeed one might be worried if they didn’t.

So what did I come up with as my top five personal values?

1. Respect. Basically this amounts to Treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself. And it must include at least: Self-Respect, Recognition, Respect, Responsibility, Freedom and Kindness from the list above.

2. Freedom of thought, word and deed. Essentially I should be able to think what I like, say what I like and do what I like with only the absolute minimum of constraint by society’s overarching values (aka. laws). From the list this would, for me, include Spirituality, Self-Expression, Creativity, Freedom, Independence.

3. Honesty. Be honest and truthful in all that you do, which is actually quite hard as we are programmed at least to tell “white lies” as it has been shown that they do oil the wheels of personal relationships. This has to include both Honesty and Justice from the list.

4. Trust. Nothing works without some level of trust between people. Without it there is anarchy and/or violence. I should be trustworthy and trusted by others and should be able to trust them in return. Again this seems to include a number of items from the list: Integrity, Loyalty, Closeness, Friendship, Kindness, Love and of course Trust.

Actually I suppose both Honesty and Trust could really be included under Respect.

5. Sex and nudity are normal. Although this is the value which I espouse, it actually goes a lot deeper. It is all tied up with attitudes to Health, to Respect (especially Self-Respect), to Honesty (why can’t we be honest about these things?), Freedom and Growth.

Looking at that the one thing that seems to be almost all-pervading is RESPECT. Your respect for others is key. But to have their respect you likely have to do most (all?) of the other things too.

Now does anyone dare tell me their top five personal values?