This activity encourages mentees to consider what is important and challenges them to choose their most important personal values.
What you need: Auction board, play money, scissors, pencil
Before you play: Print out the Values Auction board and play money. Cut the money into bills and divide evenly between players.
Introduce the game by first identifying the meaning of values and explaining how one begins to identify their personal values. Some examples include:
Personal values are the general expression of what is most important for you. A value expresses the worth of something, and in this case what you categorically like and dislike. So they are like categories for all your preferences in life.
When you define your personal values, you discover what’s truly important to you. A good way of starting to do this is to look back on your life – to identify when you felt really good and really confident that you were making good choices.
Share your values as you feel comfortable and talk about how/when you knew what was most important to you.
Be mindful of your feelings as your mentee shares, he/she may have different values than your own, shaped by his/her experiences, wants, and needs.
Directions: Begin by explaining that an auction is a process of buying and selling items by offering them up for bid, taking bids, then selling them to the highest bidder. Whoever wins the bid becomes the legal owner of the value. Ask your mentee to consider how much money he/she has and what values they would like to purchase, the mentor should do the same. Together, decide which value to auction first and begin. Mentors can start as the auctioneer, determining what dollar amount to open the bid with, raising the price as each player has an opportunity to buy the value. The highest bidder wins.
Options to playing the game: Mentors can cut the value squares on the auction board and place them so that players can move their purchased values and place them in front of them as each one is auctioned off, or simply keep it as it is, and write the name of the purchaser on each value square as you go. This activity can also be a platform to discuss life goals and money. Have fun!
ADVENTURE
CREATIVITY
FRIENDSHIP
SPIRITUALITY
COMMITMENT
FAMILY
HONESTY
TRUTH
COMMUNITY
FREEDOM
KNOWLEDGE
MONEY
Ideas about values gathered at mindtools.com