Good Essay About My Perceptions, Needs, And Values

After completion of the Needs and Values Assessment, I determined that my primary needs are respect, calm, stability, and manageability. My core values are family, friendship, creativity, wisdom, and privacy.
Primary needs are those needs that are most important to me. They are not determined by others because I am the only person who can evaluate the importance of each need and its priority in my life. However, needs are related to each other and not segregated by their definitions. For instance, my need for respect relies in part on my ability to manage my life and maintain stability in my relationships. A brief discussion of each of these needs will clarify my understanding of them.
Respect. I have a strong sense of identity and I need others to acknowledge it with a respectful attitude. People who respect you take you seriously and we are valued as a person. The acceptance is a primary need for me and I act in ways that I believe will result in respect from others. In addition, I treat others with respect because it is difficult to respect someone who does not respect you (Changingminds.org, 2015).
Calm. Anxiety can be a very destructive state of mind with negative thoughts, defeatist attitudes, and shutting out people who are supportive. Actively fighting anxiety only results in more anxiety, so when I feel the calm I need in my life seeping away, I take steps to bring it back. I talk with friends and family members about what is causing the stress, relax with meditation or a good book, and seek out interesting company. If necessary, I ask assistance from my church. A calm lifestyle is important to me and I take bold steps to maintain it.
Stability. It is important for me to set up boundaries that allow me to meet the needs of society while also meeting my primary needs and operating within my core values. In order to do this, I set priorities for myself to create a manageable schedule. I try to recognize how I react emotionally to certain situations so I can maintain distance or pull closer to maintain stable feelings. I make an effort to recognize triggers that set off certain emotions that create instability so I am ready for them with healthy reactions. Finally, I accept there will be times when there is unbalance or even chaos in my life, but there are steps I can take to correct this as soon as possible (Feiles, 2012).
Manageability. People who careen from one crisis to another never seem happy. I prefer an order to my life, which is not to say surprises and challenges don’t excite me or help me grow as a person. By being orderly and calm, my personal environment remains calm and pleasant and this is very important to me.
Determining my core values followed the same direction as analyzing my primary needs, but core values define my true self. They represent the way I live my life ethically, and if I act in a way that betrays one or more of my core values, it results in a lack of integrity. But acknowledging and respecting my core values, I am actively promoting my happiness (Chance, 2015). A discussion of my core values shows the influence they have on my behavior and perceptions.
Family and Friends. The people in my life have varied from intense relationships to casual acquaintances. Some of my friends have gone from barely knowing them to the closest of relationships and on to far-distance support as we moved away from each other. My friendships were developed in particular circumstances and it is necessary for them to evolve as we evolved as individuals. Sometimes this results in the friendship not being as intense as at another time, or it may become more intense. But network of support is very important to me and I make positive effort to reinforce my familial and friendship relationships. The key to these activities is clear communication.
Creativity. The ability to be creative allows me to manage my life. I find ways to integrate my needs and values that reduce stress and promote my personal growth. Creativity in relationships is important, too. Juggling friends who are not friends with each other or relatives who have personalities that grate with mine require innovative ways to click together successfully in my life.
Wisdom. Wisdom is not knowledge; I need knowledge to be success in my life, but I need wisdom to grow as a person. Wisdom is attained through personal introspection, discussion with friends and family, talks with church leaders, and exposing myself to education addressing wisdom acquisition such as seminars, lectures, and books. True wisdom is based on emotion, faith, and values and these are very important to me.
Privacy. I need a degree of privacy concerning information about myself. I don’t feel the need to broadcast every though and feeling to the world through blogs and tweets. I want people to know me through forming a relationship with me, whether it concerns my public, personal, or intimate life. This restriction reinforces to me who the important people are in my life and to whom I can turn for support when I need it.
My perception of myself, the outside world, and it’s perception of me are founded in my needs and values. Perceptions are shaped by our needs and core values combined with life experiences. They determine my behavior and my perception of other people is in relation to myself. I form opinions of them based on what I know, hear, and experience. An initial impression is sometimes difficult to change, but by keeping an open mind and looking for the positive in others, perceptions can change to ones that are beneficial for everyone. My need to be respected mandates that I respect others, and I sincerely believe everyone has good in them that I can respect. My perception of the world is also based on the knowledge I have of it in relation to me. That sounds very self-centered, but my need for stability requires me to choose the portions of my external environment that influence me and those that do not. This creates the stability that is one of my primary needs. Shifting my purpose and actions from one cause to another based on the current world problems will not allow me to be rooted in my life; I prefer to carefully select the activities that will best meet my needs and express my values. Other people perceive me in relation to themselves, just as I perceive them. Our experiences with each other and similar types of people result in an opinion and behavior that is shaped in the past. Current perceptions are based on the present and an expectation of the future. For that reason, I perceive myself as an ever-changing person. Every day, experiences and personal contacts combine with educational opportunities to alter my perceptions. As the old adage goes, “If you aren’t growing, you’re dying”. For an individual, personal growth is an on-going process of self-actualization. If one does not pursue personal excellence, the result is stagnation and a decline in personal development. Perhaps physical death is not the result of not growing personally, but a spiritual dying is implied by the saying. I, for one, choose to continue to grow as a person and a part of the world around me, fine-tuning my perceptions and values to meet my primary needs.
I particularly like a quote by the Greek philosopher Epictetus: “We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.” This defines the power I have being aware of my needs, values, and perceptions. I may not be responsible for what happens to me, but I am responsible on how I react to it.

References

Chance, L. (2015). The Real Definition of Core Values. Selfgrowth.com. Retrieved 17 April
2015, from http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/the-real-definition-of-core-values
Changingminds.org. “The Need For Respect”. N.p., 2015. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.
Feiles, N. (2012). Society’s Clash with Emotional Stability. Psych Central. Retrieved on April
17, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/06/05/societys-clash-with-emotional-stability/