Determining Your Values

Your values are a set of beliefs or priorities that significantly influence how you live your life. They characterize who you are individually. They shape how you set goals, make decisions, plan for today and the future, and respond to circumstances. Determining your values is both introspective and aspirational. Some of your values are based on your history—your influences and experiences. Some are simply a part of your makeup or personality. And some are based on marks of character you want to attain. 

Value exercise: Choose five. This is certainly not scientific, but here’s a simple exercise to help you hone in on your personal values. This is far from an exhaustive list, but represents a broad range of what people might consider of value in life. From the list below, choose the five values that resonate most with you. If you have difficulty choosing five, try checking all those that you feel represent you, and then pare that smaller list down to a “top five”. 

Achievement
Ambition
Caring
Charitable
Collaboration
Creativity
Curiosity
Dependability
Disciplined
Empathy
Encouragement
Enthusiasm
Ethics
Excellence
Fairness
Faith
Family
Friendships

Flexibility
Freedom
Fun
Generosity
Growth
Happiness
Honesty
Humor
Humility
Individuality
Influence
Innovation
Intelligence
Intuition
Joy
Kindness
Knowledge
Leadership

Learning
Loving
Loyal
Making a difference
Motivation
Optimism
Open-mindedness
Passion
Perfection
Performance
Personal growth
Popularity
Power
Professionalism
Punctuality
Quality work
Recognition
Relationships

Reliability
Resilience
Risk-taking
Safety
Security
Self-control
Service
Spirituality
Stability
Success
Teaching
Thankfulness
Traditional
Trustworthy
Understanding
Wealth
Well-being
Wisdom

Look at your history and experiences. What does your past reveal about what is important to you? Who has influenced your life the most and how did they move you? Were there actions or events in your past that are still especially meaningful to you? Was there a teacher or professor in school who you remember well because of what they taught you? What do these elements tell you about what is important to you in life? Write down three or four words that express important elements of people and experiences in your past. 

Try to identify a through-line. Of the five values you chose, is there a word or phrase that best describes them as a group? Consider which of those values you choose may be the “core value” or most central or important to you in your life. For example, if you chose “intelligence, knowledge, wisdom” as some of your values, then perhaps “learning” or “influential” or “teaching” might be a through-line for your values—a core desire to teach or influence others with your skills, knowledge, abilities and experience. 

Are any of these aspirational? Which, if any, of the values you chose represent who you would like to become versus a reflection of who you are right now? Is it important to you to aspire to those particular values, and why? For example, maybe you wrote down “personal development” but haven’t spent much time over the years increasing your knowledge or skills. That value may be something you really desire to work on. If you have one or more values that you would really like to work on, circle them.

Identifying and defining your values are a step in discovering what might be your life goal or purpose. You likely already have a mission statement, goals and values determined for your business organization. But few leaders consider how helpful this same exercise might be for their own lives. Understanding what you value will help you chart a path for your life that puts the majority of your time and effort into areas of meaning to you personally.