I decided to do some reflection on my personal values because this year has felt like a bit of a metamorphosis for me, and I had some gut instinct that maybe my values have changed along the way.

What I mean by personal value is basically a way of describing patterns between how you act and how you feel. e.g. Someone who frequently takes continuing education classes and feels happy about it probably values learning. Someone who takes those same classes but feels dread might value… freedom? or something else entirely.

I went through the Harmony Toolbox book again from tip to stern, and this is what I came up with for my up-to-date set of values.

• Honesty & Integrity [new] - when it helps me place trust & pride in my actions and relationships
• Pouring myself into making [new] - when I feel pride, a connection to my work, and reach a flow state
• Embracing my weird [updated] - when it makes me feel seen, proud, grounded, and special
• Loving relationships [new] - when I feel warm n fuzzy, make memories, feel safety, and create it for others
• Learning - when it makes me feel clever, ever-changing, full of life
• Adventure [new] - when I feel safe to take a risk, the sense I’m making the most out of life
• Taking care of myself - when it makes me feel energized and healthy
• Being strategic with time & money - when it makes me feel confident and clever

There are a few trends I noticed that I think are interesting to call out:

1. The Honesty / Integrity value is entirely new. I noticed that this is something I really care about this year. At all my jobs I’ve had moments where I expressed ethical concerns, but I never realized it was related to my personal values. It feels good to find this and articulate it.
2. There’s an overall theme of safety and pride across my values. This year was a bit of a roller coaster for me, very high highs and very low lows. I think that this is causing me to value stability and self esteem more acutely than I used to. I wonder if these values will be long lasting, or if they will fade as time goes on and I process those experiences.
3. So many new values! For years, my values didn’t change much year to year. I think I was in a bit of a status quo situation. This year was a big shaking of the snow globe so to speak, and the snowflakes are all resting in new places. I’m surprised by how many new values there are, yet at the same time, I can see how they were always there to some extent, just growing in their importance now.
4. This time, I really leaned into the poetic / artistic aspect of describing values. Since my definition of values is all about how certain patterns of behavior make you feel, the medium itself should also be highly attenuated to feelings! It’s more poetry than prose. I notice I feel more warm and fuzzy looking at the values when they are written in this way.

I’m interested to explore values as an input for LLM agents. Will I get better suggestions from a chatbot if it knows my values? Are my values already expressed (perhaps even more cogently) through my chats? Could sharing my values actually make responses less helpful?

At any rate, it’s helpful to have an updated set of values. Always makes me feel grounded.