Discover Your Values

We don’t decide what’s meaningful to us, our values do that job.

When we’re in contact with them, they are a beacon, guiding decisions about career and relationships, and how we spend our time.

Mike Setchell for Unsplash

Values are created by life experiences. They’re semi-conscious, showing up as intuition and feeling. They don’t have to be fully conscious to do their job, but it’s much easier if we pull them to the surface and put words to them. This is known as ‘discovering’ or ‘identifying’ your values.

Discovering

Once you’ve identified your values, you can use them to check in on your life. You may find you’re on target. Or you might discover why some things don’t feel quite right. Are you spending time on things that don’t reflect your values?

Rediscovering

Revisiting them can be a powerful step in clarifying how you spend your time, because values can shift and change with new experiences.

Find out for yourself!

Some of us prefer to reflect by going inside to question, verify, and wonder. Others prefer a to select their values from a list without thinking too much. You may want to try both methods, and then decide how to mix them.

1. Reflection

• Think of ‘peak’ experiences in your life – times you were thriving and felt like yourself. For each, write the answer to this question:

  What made this a peak experience for me?

• Read through your list, and circle words and ideas that your answers have in common.

• Now you’re ready for the values cards!

2. Values Cards

• First, print this list. Think of this list as a card game. The objective is to identify your values as fast as possible.

• Put a check mark next to the values that resonate for you. If one or more of your values is missing, you can write them in.

• Narrow your selections to 5 primary, and 5 secondary choices.