Values Clarification

Determining your values is an important part of life. The following list contains typical values to help you begin to examine your own. What is important to you?What sacrifices would you be willing to make for your values? How important is each of these values to you? Circle your top ten values. Underline the five that you would consider “core values” –those values that direct decisions in your life.

  • Achievement: Personal or professional feelings of accomplishment
  • Advancement: Opportunities to move up the ladder
  • Authority: Responsibility for directing the work of others
  • Autonomy: Freedom to develop your own approach to doing the job; opportunity to work independently
  • Challenge: Demand for the best use of your resources and abilities to meet new situations
  • Comfort: Low pressure, few constraints
  • Conformity: Expectations and direction set by others
  • Contribution: Work essential to the success of the organization
  • Cooperation: Friendly, compatible environment
  • Creativity: Opportunity to innovate and deal with new problems; varied and frequently changing situations
  • Detachment: Desire to be emotionally separate from your job
  • Entrepreneurship: Motivation to be self-employed, develop a new product line, or start a new business
  • Environment: Workplace that is clean and well designed
  • Identity: Desire to define yourself through your work
  • Interaction: Frequent and open interpersonal contact with others
  • Knowledge: Opportunity for learning
  • Mobility: Travel and frequent opportunities to relocate
  • Personal Time: Sufficient time for pursuits outside of work
  • Responsibility: Accountability for important tasks
  • Security :Job that is not likely to be eliminated
  • Social Interest: Work helping people
  • Stability: Systematized and unchanging job
  • Status: Importance in the organization; desire to be well known or famous
  • Wealth: Making a lot of money

Values taken from:

After completing the Values Clarification, you must write a 1,000 word essay where you address the following questions:

  1. If an outsider spent a week with you and saw how you spent your time, money, and energy, what would they think you value?
  2. Are any of the behaviors associated with the violation of law/policy at Oxford College inconsistent with your core values? If yes, which ones? (For example, a core value may be Achievement but you’ve been socializing too much and so have missed classes.)
  3. When you graduate from Oxford College, you want people to know that your degree is from a good school. What are three things you can do to contribute positively to the Oxford community