How to Discover your Personal Values

Have you heard me talking about Values? They are a key part of intentional living but what are they? Today I am going to share with you How to Discover your Personal Values and how to decide what is most important in your life  

WHAT ARE VALUES?

Before we dive in, you need to know what, in general, values are. Your values are the things that you believe are important in the way you live and work. 

They should determine your priorities, and you will also use them to measure if your life is turning out the way you want it to. This is why making a conscious effort to identify your values is so important. 

When the things that you do and the way you behave match your values, life is usually good – you’re satisfied and content. But when these don’t align with your personal values, that’s when things don’t feel right and it can become a source of unhappiness. 

When you know your own values, you can use them to make decisions about how to live your life and you’ll be able to determine the best direction for you and your life goals!

Defining Your Values 

Most of us don’t know our values. We don’t understand what’s most important to us. Instead, we focus on what our society, culture, and media values. 

It’s challenging to identify your personal core values. It’s easy to speculate and idealize what you should value. But knowing and accepting what you value takes effort. 

Ready? Take out your journal, a notepad, or a note-taking app. And let’s get started. 

Step 1: Identify the times when you were your happiest/most meaningful moments in your life 

Find examples from both your career and personal life. This will ensure some balance in your answers. 

• What were you doing/what was happening? 
• Were you with other people? Who? 
• What values were you honouring at the time? 
• What other factors contributed to your happiness? 

Step 2: Identify the times when you were most fulfilled and satisfied 

Again, use both work and personal examples. 

• What need or desire was fulfilled? 
• How and why did the experience give your life meaning? 
• What other factors contributed to your feelings of fulfilment?

Step 3: Identify the times when you have got angry, frustrated or upset.  

Now, go in the opposite direction; consider a time when you got angry, frustrated, or upset. 

What was going on? What were you feeling? Now flip those feelings around. 

What values were being suppressed? 

STEP 4: Chunk Your Personal Values into Related Groups 

Combining all the answers from previous steps, you can now determine your top values based on your experiences. In the video description I have added a link for you to download a list of common personal values to help you get started. You may end up with between 10 and 30 values on your list. 

That’s too many to be actionable. 

Your next step is to group these values under related themes. For example, if you have a group of values that include honesty, transparency & integrity – you should select one of the words that best represents the group. For those values, integrity may be the one you choose as the central theme and then you can keep the other words in the group in brackets to give your primary value more context. 

Step 5: Prioritise your top values 

This step is probably the most difficult part, because you’ll have to look deep inside yourself and try to prioritise your top values. How many core values should you end up with? Too few and you won’t capture the different dimensions of you. Too many and you’ll not remember them or won’t take advantage of them. 

While the number of core values differs for each person, the magic range seems to be between 5 and 10. Rank them in the order of importance. This is often the most challenging part. 

Look at the first two values and ask yourself, “If I could satisfy only one of these, which would I choose?” It might help to visualize a situation in which you would have to make that choice.  

Keep working through the list, by comparing each value with each other value, until your list is in the correct order. 

You may need to do this step in multiple sittings. After doing one round of ranking put it aside and “sleep on it.” 

Step 6: Reaffirm your values 

Regularly review your top-priority values, and make sure that they fit with your life and your vision for yourself. 

• Do these values make you feel good about yourself? Are you proud of them?  
• Do these values represent things you would support? 

When you consider your values in decision making, you can be sure to keep your sense of integrity and what you know is right, and approach decisions with confidence and clarity.  

Making value-based choices may not always be easy. However, making a choice that you know is right is a lot less difficult in the long run. 

Let me know in the comments what your personal values are and also if you have any questions or comments on what I have just shared.

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