Motivation and goals
Becoming clear about your own values and goals is a significant step in giving meaning to your own life. Our values reflect what is most important to our deepest selves: What kind of person do I want to be? What is meaningful and worthwhile for me? What do I want to stand for in this life?
Personal values give us direction and motivation, which helps us to successfully manage important things and challenges in life – for example, studying for a degree.
Identifying our values and aims
Our personal values are like a compass that can guide us through our life. They are our deepest, most heartfelt wishes for how we want to deal with and interact with the world, other people and ourselves. Values are guiding principles that can steer us and motivate us. They reflect what we want to do and, above all, how we want to do it. Based on these values, we can set goals in order to determine more concretely how exactly we want to apply our values in our life.
Worksheet: My values: What really matters to me?
Worksheet: My values for my studies and career
Worksheet: My values, my aims – I
Worksheet: My values, my aims – II
Today in five years
Imagining our future and developing a vision can give us the motivation we need to accomplish what we have to get done in the present. This is a thought and visualisation experiment. Try it and see if it works for you and whether you find it helpful.
Worksheet: Today in five years
A contract with myself
In order to make a binding commitment to a goal you've set for yourself, it can make sense to sign a formal contract with yourself in front of witnesses.
Worksheet: A contract with myself
