How Values Affect Decisions In Personal And Professional Life

How Values Affect Decisions in Personal and Professional Life

Shaundrea Sager

University of Phoenix

Abstract

Many people have a set of core values, either personal, organizational, or cultural, that help guide his or her life, and that assist him or her in making decisions in their everyday existence. Most of my decisions are based on how they will affect my family, me, and my career. My family is the key factor in any decision I make. I have to consider what influence my choices will have on my family before I act on them. My success in my career choice of Information Systems is also an important value to me. I strive to improve my knowledge of information systems to the best of ability in order to further my career. This value has brought me to be results oriented, a hard worker, and a team player. Companies are now doing business with other companies in different countries. Organizations are now set up to where employees have to interact with different people to get the job done. If someone desires a long, prosperous career, they have to learn to work with diverse people of different cultures. Everyone has a set of core values that assist him or her in making decisions in their daily existence, and many people expect these values to lead them to live a wonderful life.

Many people have a set of core values, either personal, organizational, or cultural, that help guide his or her life, and that assist him or her in making decisions in their everyday existence Values such as my family, friendships, and personal growth contribute to the choices that I make in my personal life. Values such as being results-oriented, a hard worker, a team player, and the desire to be successful guide me in making decisions in an organizational environment. I evaluate my core values before making any decisions that will influence them in anyway.

According to author David Peters (2003):

Personal ethics have been defined as principles of good behavior, a moral

code of conduct, or a system to decide between competing options. But

simply stated, personal ethics are nothing more than the rules impose

on ourselves that govern our daily actions. (p. 30)

For many people different factors and beliefs shape their values but, I believe that everyone shares one goal of living the best life possible not just physically but spiritually and mentally.

Many of my decisions are based on how they will affect my family, me, and my career. My family is the key factor in any decision I make. I have to consider what influence my choices will have on my family before I follow through with them. For example, my returning to school keeps me from spending as much time as I would like with my loved ones. I thought about returning back to school long and hard and came to the conclusion that I need to return to school now before I have more children, my daughter gets to an age were I have to run her all over town for things that she wants to participate in, or any other life-changing event takes place. I came to the conclusion that I need to go now because it will only take between a year and half or two

years to complete. By the time I am done with school, my daughter will be four and starting kindergarten, and that is a good time to also think about having another child. So I decided to go ahead and return to school and get my master's degree in information systems. If I know that a decision will drastically affect my family, I will go to them to get their input on the situation.

My success in my career choice of Information Systems is also an important value to me. Roy Posner states, "One of the interesting values in life is one's innate desire for continuous improvement." (Roy Posner 2006). I strive to improve my knowledge of information systems to