How to Identify Your Core Values
While our goals and priorities might shift depending on the seasons of our lives, values act like anchors in the midst of life’s uncertainty. They provide us with an orientation that guides our actions. Some of the most important questions we ask ourselves are: Who are we? Who would we like to be? Our values play a large role in answering those questions.
It can be helpful to actively reflect on what your values are. What is important to you? How do you want to live? What are the core beliefs that define you as a person?
Values are different from personality traits. For example, an introvert, who prefers to limit their social interactions might nonetheless value community just as much as an extroverted social butterfly.
Preferences are not the same as values, but they can reveal them. For instance, the preference for working alone is not exactly a value: rather a value might be independence, which manifests itself in the preference to work alone.
Goals are not values. While you might have the goal of starting a new business, getting married, or having children, these are goals, not values. You might want to start a business because you value security, you might choose to get married because you value commitment, and you might want to have children because you value family. However, you can still value security, commitment, and family while not wanting to start a business, get married, or have children.
Think about goals as a map or a constellation: your intended destination might be a goal, but your values provide you with orientation on your journey.
Values can change over time. If you fall extremely ill and need to rely on friends and family to help you, you might find that you begin to value community over independence in ways you hadn’t previously. After having children, you might value security and stability over fun and adventure. In comparison to goals, however, values typically change at a glacial pace, if at all.
Sometimes, a change in life circumstances can reveal values we didn’t realize we actually hold. A person who lived in poverty their whole lives before making a fortune might realize that generosity is one of their cornerstone values: they had simply been waiting for an opportunity to put this value into practice. The change in their fortune revealed to them a value that they had always held.
This is why reflecting on your values can itself be valuable. By recognizing the values that underlie your goals and preferences, you can make choices that better accord with them. Knowing your values can provide you with orientation as you look to the future and make sense of your past.
Go through the following list of values. Choose 6 that resonate with you. If you don’t find a value you hold in the list, you can make your own. Just make sure that you identify a value rather than a goal or a preference.
Authenticity: consistency with oneself and one’s beliefs
Attention: the devotion of concentration toward a particular person, object, or activity
Compassion: forgiving kindness towards oneself and others
Cooperation: productive work with others towards a shared goal
Creativity: the capacity to see beyond the world as it is
Fitness: an excellent state of physical and mental health
Flexibility: readiness to adapt and adjust to changing circumstances
Freedom: living in the manner of one’s choosing
Generosity: the practice of living and giving with abundance
Gratitude: an awareness of and appreciation for gifts received
Humility: conscientiousness towards one’s own limitations and gracious appreciation for others’ acceptance of them
Independence: the freedom and capability to make one’s own determinations
Intimacy: vulnerable and honest interpersonal connection
Kindness: speaking and acting with care toward others
Open-mindedness: willingness to consider experiences and perspectives other than one’s own
Persistence: resoluteness in the face of opposing forces
Respect: proper regard for oneself and others
Responsibility: the attendance to one’s duties to oneself and others
Self-awareness: the ability to perceive one’s own thoughts, feelings, and actions
Spirituality: the awareness of and respect for forces greater than ourselves
Once you’ve identified 6 values, write them down. From time to time, review them to remind yourself of what your core values are. Use these values as your own personal “North Star.”*
*Exercise adapted from: https://www.actmindfully.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Values_Checklist_-_Russ_Harris.pdf
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