To The Core: Where Do Core Values Come From? (2)

Basically your core values are what’s most important to you – your most deeply held, highly cherished ideals. Core values usually can be stated in one word, such as freedom, equality or justice.

Core values define who you are as a person. Probably their most important function is to guide your decision-making and daily behavior.

An apple tree is a metaphor for core values. Each part of the tree represents a different aspect of core values. This post will focus on the roots – the sources of your core values.

 Roots (The source of your core values)
Where your core values come from triggers the age-old question of nature versus nurture. It’s likely that God designed you with certain innate core values. But the shaping of  those core values occurs through the influence of your parents, significant other adults, friends and peers, media, and life experiences.

Parents
Without question your parents have been the most important influence on your core values. Much of who you are was developed during the developmental years between birth to age 5. Your parents are the people you spent the most time with during this era. You were greatly influenced by what you heard them say and saw them do. Integrity became one of my core values through the influence of my parents, especially my father.

Significant Other Adults
Throughout life you’re influenced by adults other than your parents. Think about the impact of significant other adults in your life – grandparents; school teachers; coaches; Sunday school teachers; youth group leaders; and pastors. You were impacted by their words and behavior, and unconsciously modeled yourself after them. Excellence emerged as one of my core values through the impact of my Pony League baseball coach.

Friend and Peers
When you entered school your friends and peer-group became vitally important to the development of your core values. As a teenager you wanted to fit in and therefore conformed to the core values of this group. So it’s critical for teenagers to choose their friends carefully because they tend to become like their peer group. Proverbs 13:10 says, “He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harms.” Vulnerability is one of my core values through my friendship with the people in my couple’s small group.

Media
The development of your core values are greatly affected by the media. You are influenced by the music you listen to, websites you visit, print media you read, TV shows you watch, and movies you attend. It’s easy to assimilate worldly core values unless you intentionally screen your media intake. Perseverance developed as one of my core values through the influence of movies like Rudy, Rocky, The Rookie, October Sky, and many others.

Life Experiences
What happens in your life impacts your core values – whether the experiences are positive or negative. How you handle life experiences shapes your core values.  Compassion emerged as one of my core values after my wife died unexpectedly at age 51.

In the next post we’ll examine core values through the final aspects of the tree metaphor – the base; trunk; branches; and fruit.

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