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Discover your core values in five simple steps.
You’ve come to this post for a specific reason: to discover your core values.
Now, whether that reason was inspired by the fact that you’ve been convinced of the importance of core values, I can’t say.
Maybe you just want to see what the hype is about, or you hope that “core values” is actually a hidden code to gain entrance into a secret society.
You also might be eager to find which particular value or quality best fits your life. Just like an old lady staring in eager anticipation at a three-foot counter of Tic Tacs, you are excited to choose some new values.
However, unlike that old lady reaching toward the 12-pack of Wintergreen, your choice isn’t that easy (nor does it come in a 12-pack).
In fact, the process of discovering your core values isn’t actually about choice – not entirely, anyway.
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What are core values?
I hate to break it to you, but “core values” is not a secret code into the Illuminati. That being said, they can be a type of “code” for your life (I’d make a computer coding joke here if I knew anything about coding).
Core values are the deeply held beliefs we use to guide us and make decisions in life. They are the principles that we want to run our lives.
As such, they serve as both an anchor to ground us and an engine to propel us forward.
Click the link if you want to read the full post about the importance of knowing your core values, but the five main reasons include that you will:
- Experience easier decision making
- Pursue goals in line with what is important to you
- Identify misalignment in your life and understand it
- Establish your individuality
- Empower yourself
Discovering your core values is more than a simple choice
It’s our natural tendency as humans to want to feel in control. We like to think of life in two ways: either the world is out to get us, or we have a complete choice in what we do.
Because of this, it’s easy to assume that we can look at a long list of values, point at the ones we want, and walk away with a fresh, new life philosophy.
Not only is this assumption wrong, but it can significantly take away your chance at positive self-discovery.
As you go through the four steps to discover your core values, you must understand that it’s not entirely about choice.
Discovery versus choice
Sure, there are many things in life you can choose: what to do, how to behave, when to act. (Well, you choose these things one you get through our ball of emotional patterns and brain biases and scarcity mindsets.)
But there’s also a lot that you can’t decide, such as your biological makeup, your early life experiences, and your personality.
Your core values are inspired by both categories.
It’s unrealistic to think that, at the time of reading this post, you’re a directionless, belief-less, thoughtless whim of a person who doesn’t place importance on anything. (And don’t try debating with me. The only reason you’d be arguing is if you believe it’s worth supporting. BAM, I got you.)
Instead, you are coming to this post with a whole duffel bag full of experiences and ways of thinking.
You might be ready to change or discard some, sure. But you also need to understand that unpacking that bag is part of the reason.
You need to discover what you have been carrying around, and for what reason.
So, without further ado, let’s rip open that duffel bag and begin.
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5 Simple Steps to Discover your Core Values
1. Tap into your self-awareness
While it might seem easier to start with a list of values, this selection process would actually inhibit your ability to discover your core values.
If we were to start with a list of values, your brain – rather than allowing you to be more self-aware – would focus on what you think you know. (In fact, I already see you starting to create a mental list of values… scratch it out now, I say!).
This is because self-awareness can be incredibly tricky, and our brain wants to find a shortcut.
To fight against these natural, and disadvantageous, urges, start by considering these three questions:
- Who do you admire, and why do you respect them?
Chances are that you’ve chosen a role model – either consciously or not – because you agree with the way the person interacts with the world.
Think of someone whom you look up to and respect. What do you admire about him or her? What actions of theirs do you want to emulate?
- When do you feel the most inner turmoil or regret?
This question isn’t really a pick-me-up, but it’s essential to understand what causes negative feelings in your life.
- When do you feel most inner-conflict? What actions or situations caused this conflict? When do you feel the most regretful?
Focus on what actions caused your turmoil. By doing so, you can start to understand when your beliefs might have been broken or neglected.
- When do you feel the proudest?
Again, you are looking for a series of actions that will help you better understand your beliefs. Rather than causing you turmoil, though, when did your actions make you feel good about yourself?
Often the things we are most proud of can help show us a crucial lesson: what we wish we did more of in life.
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2. Choose values from a list
Now that you have a preliminary sense of what your beliefs are, you can turn to a list of core values.
You can find tons of lists online with hundreds of core values, but I’ve provided a list of 200 core values for you below. Before you get intimidated by the large number (by golly, she expects me to consider 200?!), understand that you’re not diving into each one.
Instead, scan the list and copy or highlight any words that resonate with you for a particular reason.
For this step, don’t overthink it (says the overthinker to the overthinkee). You’ll narrow it down later on. Simply choose the values that you like, you think are important, or you think you emulate.
By the end of this step, you should have a list of at least 10 core values to work with.
- Acceptance
- Accomplishment
- Accountability
- Accuracy
- Achievement
- Adaptability
- Alertness
- Altruism
- Ambition
- Amusement
- Assertiveness
- Attentive
- Awareness
- Balance
- Beauty
- Boldness
- Bravery
- Brilliance
- Calm
- Candor
- Capable
- Careful
- Certainty
- Challenge
- Charity
- Cleanliness
- Clear
- Clever
- Comfort
- Commitment
- Common sense
- Communication
- Community
- Compassion
- Competence
- Concentration
- Confidence
- Connection
- Consciousness
- Consistency
- Contentment
- Contribution
- Control
- Conviction
- Cooperation
- Courage
- Courtesy
- Creation
- Creativity
- Credibility
- Curiosity
- Decisive
- Decisiveness
- Dedication
- Dependability
- Determination
- Development
- Devotion
- Dignity
- Discipline
- Discovery
- Drive
- Effectiveness
- Efficiency
- Empathy
- Empower
- Endurance
- Energy
- Enjoyment
- Enthusiasm
- Equality
- Ethical
- Excellence
- Experience
- Exploration
- Expressive
- Fairness
- Family
- Famous
- Fearless
- Feelings
- Ferocious
- Fidelity
- Focus
- Foresight
- Fortitude
- Freedom
- Friendship
- Fun
- Generosity
- Genius
- Giving
- Goodness
- Grace
- Gratitude
- Greatness
- Growth
- Happiness
- Hard work
- Harmony
- Health
- Honesty
- Honor
- Hope
- Humility
- Imagination
- Improvement
- Independence
- Individuality
- Innovation
- Inquisitive
- Insightful
- Inspiring
- Integrity
- Intelligence
- Intensity
- Intuitive
- Irreverent
- Joy
- Justice
- Kindness
- Knowledge
- Lawful
- Leadership
- Learning
- Liberty
- Logic
- Love
- Loyalty
- Mastery
- Maturity
- Meaning
- Moderation
- Motivation
- Openness
- Optimism
- Order
- Organization
- Originality
- Passion
- Patience
- Peace
- Performance
- Persistence
- Playfulness
- Poise
- Potential
- Power
- Present
- Productivity
- Professionalism
- Prosperity
- Purpose
- Quality
- Realistic
- Reason
- Recognition
- Recreation
- Reflective
- Respect
- Responsibility
- Restraint
- Results-oriented
- Reverence
- Rigor
- Risk
- Satisfaction
- Security
- Self-reliance
- Selfless
- Sensitivity
- Serenity
- Service
- Sharing
- Significance
- Silence
- Simplicity
- Sincerity
- Skill
- Skillfulness
- Smart
- Solitude
- Spirit
- Spirituality
- Spontaneous
- Stability
- Status
- Stewardship
- Strength
- Structure
- Success
- Support
- Surprise
- Sustainability
- Talent
- Teamwork
- Temperance
- Thankful
- Thorough
- Thoughtful
- Timeliness
- Tolerance
- Toughness
- Traditional
- Tranquility
- Transparency
- Trust
- Trustworthy
- Truth
- Understanding
- Uniqueness
- Unity
- Valor
- Victory
- Vigor
- Vision
- Vitality
- Wealth
- Welcoming
- Winning
- Wisdom
- Wonder
Now that you’ve got a list of values to work with, you can narrow it down by considering the next three steps below.
3. Categorize your values
Try organizing your list of words into categories. For example, ambition, accomplishment, and drive might go together, as might empathy, kindness, and compassion.
Once you have placed your words into groupings, step back, and look at them (No, seriously, get up and step back. You need to move your body every once in a while).
Consider the questions:
- What similar themes emerge in each grouping?
- Which categories contain the most number of values?
- What does your categorization reveal about what you think is important?
After putting your list into categories, I imagine you will begin to discover insight into your core values.
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4. Play versus with values
If you’re a sports person, you probably know what a tournament bracket looks like (and if not, that okay, too). You start with a long list of teams, and, after a series of head-to-head contests, only specific teams advance.
To help you discover your core values, you can put your list of values through a similar head-to-head bracket.
Place two values next to each other and consider the questions:
- Which value do I think is more important?
- If I have to get rid of one of these, which one am I willing to lose?
- Which value am I unwilling to get rid of?
After you answer these questions, move the winning value to another contest and repeat the process. Eventually, you’ll narrow down your long list into a much shorter one. (Sidenote: don’t be afraid to have a loser’s bracket if you feel uncertain about getting rid of one).
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5. Reaffirm your values
By this point in the discovery process, you should have a narrowed-down list of potential core values. Now, you must try them on for size to see if they align with your thinking.
Core values are not something you should feel like you need to hide, nor are they things that might come up “every once in a while” in your life.
If they are genuinely your core values, they should be guiding principles for everything that you do.
To make sure you feel comfortable with the list you have, ask yourself these questions:
- If I had to wear these core values printed boldly on a t-shirt, how would I feel?
- How would I feel if my boss said that my core values are the pillars of the company I work for?
- If I acted in the opposite way of each core value, how would I feel?
Only time and experience will tell if these core values are truly your own, but these questions can help you discover if you’re on the right track.
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Practice after your discover your core values
Okay, so you have your core values. You’re feeling excited and ready to go, and… what next?
The process of putting abstract core values into actual practice might seem equivalent to catching smoke with a butterfly net. In other words, awkward and difficult (plus, like, no pretty butterflies… what a let down).
After you discover your core values, however, there are tangible things you can do to practice them in your life.
It will take time to fully make a value your own, but here are two specific actions you can start with:
1. Reflect on a specific value
Choose one of your core values and reflect on this value at the end of each day or week. Where did you show this core value? How did it play a role in your decision-making?
For example, let’s say you want to focus on your respect. Before you go to bed, consider all the instances you showed respect that day.
Maybe you listened attentively to someone, even though you didn’t agree with them. Perhaps you thanked a friend or colleague, demonstrating that you valued their input.
By taking an inventory of your actions, you can observe where you can improve in the practice of a specific value.
Reflection will also help you establish a definition in your mind of what a core value looks like to you.
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2. Make a goal to practice a specific value
Instead of reflecting on your behaviors, you can also be more proactive. Choose one of your core values and make it a goal to practice that value throughout the day.
You might find yourself acting differently, although there probably won’t be a significant change if it really is one of your core values.
Instead, you will find yourself becoming more deliberate in your actions with the core value in mind.
It’s like lacing up the pair of sneakers you usually leave untied. You’ve already been walking in the shoes, but now they fit more precisely on your feet (and there’s less likelihood at tripping into an over-exaggerated swan dive).
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Core Values Change Over Time
It’s important to remember that core values change over time. Once you discover your core values, you aren’t set for life. You’ll need to repeat the process multiple times.
Rather than a chore, this is actually a great thing.
It gives you the freedom to grow and evolve as you take on this beautiful journey called life (insert flowery quote about life’s journey here).
Seriously, though, let’s say your style of clothing symbolizes your core values. Imagine if, through the decades, the different trends, and the various stages of your life, you never could change your style.
Some of your core values will always be important to you, just like some of your trusted clothing choices will last forever (here’s looking at you in that cardigan sweater, Mr. Rogers).
But you have to allow yourself the room to change.
As you discover your core values, remember that different core values apply in different situations
All of your core values also won’t all apply in every situation. Sometimes one might outrank another, and sometimes one won’t even be considered at all.
I might sincerely believe in facing life with a sense of humor, but that doesn’t mean I should be cracking jokes at my grandpa’s funeral. (Well, my cousins and I did. But that’s because he genuinely valued a sense of humor too.)
Respect might take precedent over humor, but maybe loyalty takes precedence over respect. But only in situations in which I’m being loyal to my family.
You can see how things can get complicated.
This is why you need to look at your core values not as laws, but as guides.
It’s important to be open-minded about your values and your behaviors. Believe me, I know… as a naturally disciplined and extreme person, I’ve given myself way more headaches than need me.
Your core values will apply, overlap, combine, and fade in different situations. That’s okay.
Allow yourself to make mistakes as you discover your core values and put them into practice
Finally, allow yourself to make mistakes.
Remember that whole idea about how core values aren’t a magic eight ball with magic answers? Yeah, that’s because they’re not magic.
Having core values doesn’t set you up for some magical, fairy tale life filled with frozen yogurt and perfect relationships (take it from The Good Place).
Forgive yourself for when you mess. Free yourself to live.
There’s a reason this post is called “Discover your Core Values.” Discovery is a process, and you have to let yourself experience this process to learn.
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Conclusion
Core values are the deeply held beliefs we have about how we should act. We cannot merely choose core values, but instead, we need to engage in the process of discovery.
In doing so, we build our view of what is important based on our experiences and who were are.
To discover your core values, you can follow four simple steps:
- Tap into your self-awareness
- Choose values from a list
- Categorize your core values
- Play versus with your values
- Reaffirm your values
Once you have discovered your core values, you can start putting them into practice through deliberate reflection and goal-setting.
It is important to remember that your core values can change over time. Different core values also apply in different situations, so you should keep an open mind and allow yourself to grow in your discovery process.
Are you ready to discover your core values? Don’t you want to know? Can you believe your core values are out there, just waiting for you to discover them?
Take the first step, choose one of the questions, and answer with a comment below.
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FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS
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Comment below with answers, ideas, and more questions, or contact me to collaborate on a future post!
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EXPLORING YOURSELF
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Who do you admire the most, and why?
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When do you feel the most inner turmoil or regret?
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When do you feel the proudest?
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EXPANDING YOUR WORLD
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Who invented the term “core values”?
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Why is reflection so powerful?
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How do humans develop their belief systems?
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