Tuesday, June 15, 2010

me.

Last year, I took two classes as part of a leadership certificate.  The first semester, our major project was a portfolio in which we explored every facet of our personality, our core being.  This included countless writing assignments, personality assessments, interviews with those closest to us, etc.  Mine ended up being 50+ pages long.  I LOVED writing this thing. 

This May, six months after finishing this project, I pulled out my book once again, and revisited many of the exercises.  I looked again at my core values, my personal statement, my vision.  While I don't think I've strayed from my values (although I have definitely made mistakes), I think don't always make decisions or begin the day with these values in mind.  As I think about where I want to go in life, the impression I want to make on those around me, I recognize again the importance of not only KNOWING my core values, but also keeping them in the forefront of my mind.

My Core Values
1.     Faith—believing wholeheartedly, against all odds, in God, His sovereignty, His love, and His plan for me.
2.     Love—looking for the best in people, finding the beauty in people, essentially 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 : “Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
3.     Passion—you can’t live life half-way.  One of my favorite quotes is “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” (Howard Thurman).  Life is a gift and should be lived to the fullest.
4.     Joy—this is a value my mother instilled in me very early on.  It’s essentially the same paradigm/belief that you can’t always change your surroundings or your circumstances, but you can change how you look at them.  Instead of problems, I see opportunities to grow and learn.
5.     Integrity—firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values; to be true to oneself, to be real and not multisided

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