To The Core: How To Identify Your Core Values (1)

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? People have pondered this riddle forever.

In summer 2010 British scientists at Sheffield and Warwick universities claimed they solved the mystery – the chicken came first. Apparently a chicken’s ovaries contains a protein that’s necessary for the egg to form. So the egg couldn’t exist without the chicken.1 I have to admit that I’m still not convinced.

The source of core values poses a similar riddle. Were your core values embedded by God or established through external sources such as your parents? Most likely, the answer is … both.

Let’s consider a process to identify your core values by examining the impact of 5 external sources.  Each component has played – and continues to play – a significant role in the development of your core values. In this post we’ll consider the role your parents had in the development of your core values.

Parents
You are the sum of all the interactions and experiences in life. However, social scientists have found that by age 5 you pretty much are who you will be. After early childhood, your character changes only through extremely significant relationships or experiences.

Your parents have had the most direct and significant influence on your character development. Identifying your core values should begin by asking this question: “What values were most important to your parents?” You may want to dig a little deeper by asking yourself these questions:

1. What was important to them?
2. What did they tell you about life?
3. How did they behave in their daily lives?
4. How closely did their behavior match their words?
5. On what basis did they make decisions?

The older you get the more you realize that you’re very much like your parents. For some people that’s a comforting thought. For others, it’s repulsive to acknowledge that you’re similar to your parents. It all depends on whether your relationship with your parents was positive or negative.

In the book The Purpose-Driven Life, Rick Warren states an important truth. It doesn’t matter whether you liked or disliked your parents. It’s not important whether your parents were good or bad people. God gave you the parents He did because they were the perfect parents for you.

My relationship with my own parents was very poor when I left home. I was angry with them for many things that occurred as I grew up. I spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in counseling fees to arrive at an important conclusion. My parents did the best they could. They didn’t intentionally hurt me, but were only able to give me what they themselves had received from their parents – and that wasn’t very much. Considering their own woundedness, my parents did a pretty amazing job of raising me.

Lately, I realize how much my parents taught me. Today I find myself saying things like, “My Mom once said …” or “My Dad taught me that ….” For all the mistakes my parents made, I consistently saw them demonstrate the core value of integrity. They said what they meant and meant what they said. Their word was their bond, and they were as honest as the day is long. It’s no wonder that my #1 core value is integrity. What core value did you learn from your parents?

In the next post we’ll take a look at identifying your core values stemming from your relationship with other significant adults, friends and peers, media, and life experiences.

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Click here for the research on the chicken or the egg