I hoped you were inspired to make your own purpose statement and core values after reading yesterday’s post. I was so inspired, I re-did my core values after just one day! Remember, you can re-do these whenever you want!

I really wanted to get my core values right, so I thought more about my big list of core values and re-grouped them into five themes. Yesterday’s list of my core values was achievement, authenticity, creativity, learning, forgiveness, happiness, and patience.  I added to that adventure, wonder, curiosity, daring, diversity, resilience, reliability, vulnerability, focus, joy, diversity, gratitude, inspiration, honesty, humility, vulnerability, teaching, quality and healing. Here are my five groups. I made the most compelling core value bold:

1. achievement, resilience, reliability, quality, focus
2. creativity, adventure, daring
3. authenticity, honesty, humility, vulnerability
4. learning, curiosity, teaching, inspiration, wonder
5. happiness, forgiveness, gratitude, patience, joy, diversity, healing

Thus, my core values now are just a little different, and I think a little more compelling to me:

1. Achievement is still important because it gives a sense of importance to the actual “products” I want to give to others in life. I want to give the very best version of myself. I want to give the very best music. The very best teaching. The very best engagement.
2. Adventure is more interesting to me than just creativity, because it implies horizons to aim for, not only in artistic and musical things, but also in travel, personal development and philosophy.
3. Authenticity remains a key core value, because I am drawn to what is the most “real”–be it in music, the facts of history, or the myths of the mind.
4. Instead of “learning,” I focused on the idea of wonder, adding an element of enthusiasm and emotion to the process of gathering and sharing experiences, facts and ideas.
5. Happiness remained a key word to describe the mood I want to be in and convey to others. That’s why I am taking a whole year to write about happiness.