31 Days to Fix Your Finances, Day 1

As I posted over on $ man blog, I'm going to be trying out the 31 Days to Fix Your Finances program from Trent at The Simple Dollar.

Tonight, I started with the task for Day 1: list your five main values. I generally have problems with lists like this because they make me feel like I have to define myself in only a few short ideas. Obviously I understand the point of the exercise, but it's not as easy as I thought it would be. I imagine some could list only four or five values and be done in five minutes without any second thoughts. I can't. I thought about it for 20 minutes or so and came up with this. All I can say is that it accurately represents my values at this point in time, in no particular order. Of course, I list six.

- creativity
- family
- flexibility
- financial security
- automation
- happiness

Narrowing it down and combining similar values into one "theme" took the most time. Some of the items may make sense to you, others may make you scratch your heads. Thus the reason why they're my values. ;)

There is a list 1A to the above list that could have easily been the list I chose. On a different day at a different time, maybe it would have made the cut.

Tomorrow should be interesting as I delve into Day 2: defining goals from your values.