PDP Activity 3 Personal Values – Does it all add up?

The PDP Activity 3 Personal Values helps you identify your top values and align them with your goals. It also helps you reflect on your choices and make better decisions. The activity includes checking for congruence, reflecting on the road walked, and identifying missed opportunities.

PDP Activity 3 Personal Values – Does it all add up?
Activity 1:
What I value most is… Important to me (√)
1. A good car
2. Challenge
3. Contributing to society
4. Feeling I am in control of my life
5. Creativity
6. Fairness
7. Fame and celebrity
8. Family and home life
9. Friendship
10. Having a good time
11. Health
12. Help received from others
13. Helping others
14. Honesty
15. Big house
16. Independence
17. Influence
18. Integrity
19. Intellectual abilities
20. A good job or career
21. Justice
22. Leadership and authority
23. Leaving something for posterity
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24. Making a difference to the world
25. Money
26. New experiences
27. Personal qualities such as kindness
28. Physical appearance
29. Popularity
s
30. Good-quality possessions
31. Power
32. Being needed
33. Security
34. A feeling of self-worth
35. Social life
36. Solitude
37. Spiritual life
38. Sporting ability
39. Being wanted
40. Other things: (state what)
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Activity: Personal values 2
Select the ten items you value most and list these in order of importance, where 1 is the most important,
2 for the next in importance and so on.
1 6
2 7
3 8
4 9
5 10
Reflection activity for this exercise:(for each of the sections below we expect you to reflect on your
responses above and to write a few sentences or paragraphs – do not answer with single words or
phrases. Remember this is about reflective thinking which should always represent a thought process of
‘mulling things over’.
Consider the top ten items that you valued. What themes can you identify? For example, do
your choices suggest you place a high value on anything in particular? What do you not place
high value on?
My choices suggest that is should place high value on the most essential things in life, leaving behind the
less important.
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Are you comfortable with your responses or do you feel you should value ‘other things’. If so,
what does this tell you about yourself?
Am comfortable with my response, and that is what makes me happy in life.
Identify a time when your values were ‘put to the test’. Describe what happened and what
you discovered about yourself and your personal values at that time.
I failed an examination during my third semester in the university. I felt that my dreams will not be
fulfilled in life. I discovered that there are challenges which force someone to the toughest end in life, and
that is the driver to success.
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Activity: Does it all add up? Checking for congruence
Are your vision, ambitions, values and sources of inspiration in alignment? Where might there
be sources of internal conflict that could undermine your efforts? On the chart below, jot down
a response to the questions, using the boxes which will expand to take the text you write.
Goal (e.g. what I want to achieve
from my time at university)?
Successful life
What is my vision of success in
relation to this goal? What would
success look like?
Independent, satisfied in life
How does this goal fit into a
bigger ‘vision’ for my life and my
longer-term ambitions?
Through hard work, and selling skill, this goal fits well.
What motivates me to pursue
this goal – what do I want to gain
from achieving this goal?
All people in the community are successful; i want to gain
wealth
What has influenced me, perhaps
over many years, in forming this
goal?
Beggars in the street, and hawkers in the street, spending
their day in the hot sun and rain, to earn something to eat.
What inspiration can I call upon
to help me achieve this goal?
The sky is the limit, and inspiration is the mother of success.
What are my short-term goals?
How do these support my main
goal?
Gaining success in exams, getting a job-they are the way to a
successful future
How does this goal fit with my
beliefs and values?
Success fits well with my believes and values
How do the attitudes of people
around me support me in
working towards my current
goal?
Negative attitude encourages me to move on , and put extra
efforts, as well as positive attitude
What resources do I have, to
support me towards my current
goal?
Human resources, who include friends, parents and
lectures, as well as books.
What else in my current situation
supports or undermines me in
working towards my goals?
The internet supports me in working towards my goals
Conclusions Being ambitious towards achieving a certain goal makes me
move on. Nothing can bar me from achieving my goal in life.
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Reflection Activity: The Road Walked:
Take a few minutes to jot down choices that you have made and that you look back on and feel
good about. This may include significant friendships, work, how you dealt with difficult
situations, saying or doing the right thing, presents given, offers you have accepted or turned
down, your dedication to your learning or to resolving a problem, the benefits from learning a
new skill, acts of kindness, and good decisions you made. Focus on your role – what you did or
did not do – rather than on what others did to you.
Then read through your list and select your best use of an opportunity – it may have been
something that appears small, such as a small act of giving and seeing a happy response, or it
may have been something as major as saving a life. Use this as your example and write it in the
last box below, then try to identify the various impacts that one occasion has had on other
aspects of your life. What other opportunities arose from it – or what other opportunities did it
cause you to miss out on?
Choices I have made that I feel good about:
To be obedient
To respect my parents and elders
To study hard
To be successful in life
To be disciplined
To secure a good job
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Repeat the process to think of choices that you have made and that you look back on and feel
less good about, then complete the last box:
 Going to party with friends in the university
Joining drama club
 Going for swimming trips, and never learnt how to swim
Spending money on expensive foods instead of saving
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My best use of an opportunity was:
Getting a scholarship in the greatest university in Canada
The opportunities that arose from this were:
Interacting with other students in a new country
Learning a foreign language
Things I missed out on because of this were:
Good time with friends
Daily duties t home


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My opportunity that I missed that has had the greatest impact on me was:
Applying for the HELB facility
The alternative choices I could have made at the time were:
Get bursaries from the government offices
If I had made the choices above, the consequences might have been:
Saved a lot of money to use in the future
Have comfortable time to study in school, thus achieve the best