This is an accompanying page for this peculiar blog post.
The following process can be used to find your core values. Take your time, even though the internet says you can do it in 15 minutes (and you can, it will already give you some insights), I would budget in a couple of hours total. Think it through. Maybe let it simmer and return to it another day.
Even though I learned this process initially through my wife, I took inspiration from this and this blog post to articulate the process below. The list of values at the end of this post is copied from the second blog post, because I think it is valuable enough to repeat it here.
It’s important to note that core values change over time. For example health might not be among them now, but when your health deteriorates, it could become a core value.
What is important to you?
- Reflect on (big) moments in your life
- that felt the most rewarding, satisfying and fulfilling
- when you were really proud of yourself
- you felt the most happy.
- List the persons that you admire.
- Answer this: if you had unlimited resources, how would you spend your life?
For each answer given above, identify what values are present within these occasions. Then go through those values and identify the ones that still resonate with you. Once you identify a value that still resonates with you, write it down on its own separate piece of paper.
You may have many pieces of paper with values now. Order them to reduce them to about 5 values. Do this by comparing every possible pair of values and each time tally the most important one of the two. The ones with the most tallies are your current most important ie core values.
Tallying is easy when you have all the pieces of paper with your values in a line. Start with the first piece and compare the value to all the other ones after it, each time tallying the most important of the two. Then do the second value, compare it to all the values after it (not to the first one, because you compared those two the first time already). Then the third value, compare it to all values after it. Until the last one.
I found it easiest to start with the persons I admire. It helped me not to have the list of values handy, so I could distill the values from the answers without getting biased or boxed in too much. In the end I combined some values (e.g. creativity, originality and musicality) into one entry because they stand for the same core value in my opinion.
Practice
- Post your values where you see them often, at least daily. For example on your bathroom mirror.
- Set goals aligned with your values. While the values will set a direction, goals provide the smaller steps moving in that direction.
- When confronted with a choice, test the options against your values.
Core values
Following is a list of values to get some inspiration regarding what possible values there are.
- Acceptance: to be open to and accepting of myself, others, and life.
- Adventure: to be adventurous; to actively seek, create, or explore novel or stimulating experiences.
- Assertiveness: to respectfully stand up for my rights and request what I want.
- Authenticity: to be authentic, genuine, real; to be true to myself.
- Beauty: to appreciate, create, nurture, or cultivate beauty in myself, others, and the environment.
- Caring: to be caring towards myself, others, and the environment.
- Challenge: to keep challenging myself to grow, learn, and improve.
- Compassion: to act with kindness towards those who are suffering.
- Connection: to engage fully in whatever I am doing and be fully present with others.
- Contribution: to contribute, help, assist, or make a positive difference to myself or others.
- Conformity: to be respectful and obedient of rules and obligations.
- Cooperation: to be cooperative and collaborative with others.
- Courage: to be courageous or brave; to persist in the face of fear, threat, or difficulty.
- Creativity: to be creative or innovative.
- Curiosity: to be curious, open-minded, and interested; to explore and discover.
- Encouragement: to encourage and reward behavior that I value in myself or others.
- Equality: to treat others as equal to myself.
- Excitement: to seek, create, and engage in activities that are exciting, stimulating, or thrilling.
- Fairness: to be fair to myself or others.
- Fitness: to maintain or improve my fitness; to look after my physical and mental health and well-being.
- Flexibility: to adjust and adapt readily to changing circumstances.
- Freedom: to live freely; to choose how I live and behave, or help others do likewise.
- Friendliness: to be friendly, companionable, or agreeable towards others.
- Forgiveness: to be forgiving towards myself or others.
- Fun: to be fun-loving; to seek, create, and engage in fun-filled activities.
- Generosity: to be generous, sharing, and giving to myself or others.
- Gratitude: to be grateful for and appreciative of the positive aspects of myself, others, and life.
- Honesty: to be honest, truthful, and sincere with myself and others.
- Humor: to see and appreciate the humorous side of life.
- Humility: to be humble or modest; to let my achievements speak for themselves.
- Industry: to be industrious, hard-working, and dedicated.
- Independence: to be self-supportive and choose my own way of doing things.
- Intimacy: to open up, reveal, and share myself- emotionally or physically in my close personal relationships.
- Justice: to uphold justice and fairness.
- Kindness: to be kind, compassionate, considerate, nurturing, or caring towards myself or others.
- Love: to act lovingly or affectionately towards myself or others.
- Mindfulness: to be conscious of, open to, and curious about my here-and-now experience.
- Order: to be orderly and organized.
- Open-mindedness: to think things through, see things from others’ points of view and weigh evidence fairly.
- Patience: to wait calmly for what I want.
- Persistence: to continue resolutely, despite problems or difficulties.
- Pleasure: to create and give pleasure to myself or others.
- Power: to strongly influence or wield authority over others, e.g. taking charge, leading, and organizing.
- Reciprocity: to build relationships in which there is a fair balance of giving and taking.
- Respect: to be respectful towards myself or others; to be polite, considerate and
- show positive regard.
- Responsibility: to be responsible and accountable for my actions.
- Romance: to be romantic; to display and express love or strong affection.
- Safety: to secure, protect, or ensure safety of myself or others.
- Self-awareness: to be aware of my own thoughts, feelings, and actions.
- Self-care: to look after my health and well-being and get my needs met.
- Self-development: to keep growing, advancing, or improving in knowledge, skills, character or life experience.
- Self-control: to act in accordance with my own ideals.
- Sensuality: to create, explore, and enjoy experiences that stimulate the five senses.
- Sexuality: to explore or express my sexuality.
- Spirituality: to connect with things bigger than myself.
- Skillfulness: to continually practice and improve my skills and apply myself fully when using them.
- Supportiveness: to be supportive, helpful, encouraging, and available to myself or others
- Trust: to be trustworthy; to be loyal, faithful, sincere, and reliable.