How to Uncover and Live by Your Personal Values

In one of my imaginary lives, I would be an explorer.

Or an archeologist. Or whatever Indiana Jones and Robert Langdon and Brendan Fraser’s character in The Mummy are.

Basically, I like the idea of a life spent plundering unexplored depths for secrets unknown to the rest of humanity. If it’s dark and mysterious, I want to get all up IN it.

Which is why I think this personal values exercise is the most fun.

It’s like when you look at yourself in the mirror, and you think you know who you are and what you stand for, but then when it comes time to sit down and put pen to paper on the subject, you’re suddenly . . . stumped. How can this be?!

I know what I value! You declare.

I value . . . family?

Tradition . . .?

Erm . . . taco Tuesdays?

And suddenly, you realize it’s the nuances of your own psyche that are the unexplored depths.

Well, baby, it’s time to go spelunking.

There are many reasons why core values are important, but the biggie is the fact that designing the lifestyle you want requires having a clear vision of what matters most to you. Once you’ve established your personal values, they will likely remain unaffected by the influence of others—even if they do evolve over time as your priorities shift and your definitions of fulfillment and success change.

What to Do

You’re here to discover the personal values that create your own internal compass, so you might be tempted to grab a personal values list and circle everything appealing in pink highlighter. Here’s what’s tricky about values, though: we don’t choose them. They reveal themselves to us.

So, finding them requires some actual digging.

If you start by looking at a list, you’ll be drawn to values that fit some model of “right,” “admirable,” or “the way things should be,” and those ideas don’t actually come from you. They come from parents, friends, media and society.

So do Step One without looking at a list first, okay?

Step One

To cut to the heart of what makes you tick, start by asking yourself the following questions. Spend a few minutes with each one, and don’t overthink them. You’ll want to listen to your gut and jot down your ideas quickly.

1. What’s most important in your life? Beyond your basic human needs, what must you have in your life to experience fulfillment? Creative self-expression? A strong level of health and vitality? A sense of excitement and adventure? To be surrounded by beauty? To always be learning? What are the personal values you must honor, or a part of you withers and dies?
2. What does success mean to you? Bear in mind when you start your career, money and status might be top priorities. After you have a family, however, a work-life balance may be what you value more. Consider what, at your current life stage, a successful existence looks like.
3. What galvanizes you into action? To what causes would you donate large sums if you had all the money in the world? What makes you righteously indignant? What beliefs are you willing to defend at all costs?
4. What qualities do you admire in others?
5. When do you feel most proud of yourself? What strengths are you proud to have inherited from your family?
6. What do you hope will be written in a biography about your life? What ideals and standards do you want to be associated with? These are the questions like “Would I rather be liked or respected?” You know, that old chestnut.

Step Two

Now that you’ve got a starting point go through this core values list and see if anything else resonates. Include those additional values on your list.

When you look over the finished page, you may find that some of your answers don’t actually constitute values. Maybe you have to have long walks by the river and creative expression in order to experience fulfillment. Long walks are not a value; creative expression is. But you may be able to turn long walks into something usable in Step Three.

Step Three

Group all the ideas on your list into related themes. To help you out, here are some examples from my own list.

Responsible, accountable and punctual are all related.

Self-aware, curious and driven to improve relate to each other as well.

Enthusiastic, connected and optimistic are related too. Group them together.

Now, select an umbrella term that best represents each group. For instance, the first group’s all-encompassing value could be “trustworthy.” Trustworthiness is exemplified by someone taking responsibility for their own life, being accountable when they screw up and showing up when they say they will.

Here is where you might group “long walks by the river” with similar ideas under an umbrella value like health or vitality.

The goal is to end up with 5-10 umbrella values.

Step Four

Don’t worry if you have several sub-values under each main category, the umbrella values are what we’re counting. If you end up with more than 10 umbrella values, try to whittle it down to only those that feel truly essential to support your happiness.

To do that, it helps to consider the following:

• Would you be proud to talk about this value to people you admire?
• Does this value represent things you would support, even if your choice puts you in the minority?
• Would you sacrifice any of these values for a million dollars?
• Have you lost any of these values in times of stress?
• Do you envision that, in 25 years, this value still holds true for you?
• Would you stop holding this value if, at some point, it became a competitive disadvantage?

Step Five

Now for the most important step of all. (Drum roll, please).

For each of your top personal values, ask yourself, how is success in this value measured?

The importance of this step cannot be overstated.

If you don’t know what health and vitality look like, how will you know when you’ve achieved them? Ditto for creative fulfillment, intimacy, prosperity, independence and so many others.

Create a yardstick that is meaningful to you and use it to gauge how closely your thoughts and behaviors adhere to the values that you’ve chosen to define you. When you’re accountable to yourself for thinking and acting the way someone with integrity thinks and acts, for example, you not only create a solid identity as someone with integrity, but you also develop confidence in your ability to be someone you admire.

So many rewards in one tiny step!

Most importantly, checking this box ensures the rest of us will know when to show up to celebrate your mind-boggling success.

Your Turn

So tell me in the comments, what values did you land on?

Can you see any spots in your life where you might want to adjust to better serve those ends?

Listen to the companion episode.