Finding My Value

Reflecting on my years in design, I'm struck by an irony: we would always start a project by defining design values and principles - practical heuristics to guide our specific decision-making. Yet, when I thought about how I was making decisions which guide my own life, I found myself at a loss. It didn't feel like I was making deliberate decisions at all. It's a peculiar realization—having guided others while feeling somewhat adrift myself.

Of course, I knew about the concept of personal core values, but it was a concept that made me slightly uneasy - nervously close to the woo-woo territory of horoscopes and personality profiles.

So, with some hesitation and healthy skepticism, I decided to take the leap and see if I could discover my own core values.

The process was messy, iterative, and often perplexing. But the deeper I dived, the more I appreciated the activity, and my doubt around the value of values started to drop away.

I'm going to share a detailed step-by-step guide for discovering your core values in a future post, but to start, I want to offer a glimpse over my shoulder of what this process looked like for me.

What are values?

When I think about what I value about myself, I have a tendency to think about specific things that I've accomplished and the skills that helped me achieve those things.

This type of thinking frames our values as 'the things we do'. Thinking about values from this perspective might lead to frustration because we don't always have control over the things that we do.

A useful reframing is to think of values as 'how we do things'. Instead of limiting your satisfaction, fulfillment, or sense of purpose to what you do, how can you approach any task at any time in a way that can provide you with satisfaction?

Finding the answer to this is the heart of finding your values. By having this awareness, you not only unlock possibilities for finding unexpected sources of satisfaction and fulfillment in your day-to-day life but also form a foundation that sustains, rather than offering fleeting moments of pleasure from completing a task or achieving a goal.

At a deeper level, I'd come to see that the value I can provide is not tied to my specific skills or abilities (which I share with many other people) but instead to my values themselves, a unique combination that in turn manifests in the actions I make.

Embrace your unique process

My process of discovering my values didn't follow a clear, linear path. It felt more like creating abstract art than following a blueprint.

There are various guides and templates which outline a specific process for identifying your values. I experimented with various formats—bullet points, paragraphs, diagrams—each offering different perspectives.

As I went through this process, I practiced awareness of how I was responding to different formats and methods. I had a realization that there's no one-size-fits-all method for discovering your values.

Your values are deeply personal, and how you find your values will be uniquely individual.

In my next post, I will share my own values and some insights about the unique approach I took to discover them. But remember that the audience for your values isn't your colleagues, your friends, or your family—they are for you.

I believe it's more important to find the words and format that resonate deeply with you than to create something that others will understand.

Let them sit

Whatever shape your approach takes, I do believe it will be a process. Discovering your values will not be something you can just sit down and figure out in a single session.

My process took many iterations over many weeks. Accept that during this process you may be frustrated and feel like you've hit a dead end. Expect that on one day you'll feel like you've finally figured them out, and then the next day you'll realize that they're still not right.

Because your values are deeply personal, the activity of finding your values is a great exercise in self-awareness. You might identify a value that seems right, but does it feel right?

I found it useful to let the values sit for a few days in the back of my mind. Some values that initially seemed right didn't quite fit over time.

Have you ever had that experience of knowing something isn't quite right, but struggle to pinpoint why?

An example of this were two values that I had captured in a draft as "authentic connections" and "empowering others".

They both looked good on paper, but they gave me what I can only describe as 'the ick'.

(I need to emphasize here that I believe these are both wonderful values, but something about using these words to represent them didn't feel authentic to me. This is no slight to anyone who has these or something similar as their own core values.)

Acknowledging that these were not the right words for me was the first step of deeper insights into what truly provides me satisfaction and fulfillment.

Have you ever found that the most meaningful insights come from unexpected places?

After some reflection, I realized I was focusing on outcomes rather than the processes that truly fulfilled me. It's true that I enjoy both authentic connections and empowering others, but for me, the deeper sense of satisfaction comes from creating conditions for these to occur.

This insight led me to reframe these values. "Authentic connections" evolved into "openness", and "empowering others" transformed to "unlocking possibilities".

These refined versions felt true—a perfect fit rather than an approximation.

Witnessing the Interconnections

As my values evolved, I began to see interconnections everywhere. It was like witnessing a complex tapestry come into focus—each thread representing a different aspect of my life, weaving together to form a cohesive whole.

I saw how childhood experiences shaped my values, how professional skills intertwined with personal principles. I saw how my behaviors, actions, and the things I say are connected to my values.

How often do we take the time to step back and observe the intricate ways our experiences shape our values?

More interestingly, I noticed that while each value resonated with me as a singular value, I saw how each value could be connected with each other. They were mutually reinforcing and strengthened each other.

I smiled when I became aware that finding these connections was not just satisfying—but emerged as a value in itself. The ability to synthesize different elements into a unified whole emerged as a core part of who I am.

Other people might not have this same value of integration, but I do suspect that when discovering your values, if you take a step back to look at the bigger picture, you will also see how they present a coherent and deeply personal philosophy.

Closing thoughts

This process of discovering and refining my values has been deeply personal. It's been iterative and often unclear. I've come to appreciate that feeling uncertain or confused at times isn't just normal—it's an integral part of the process.

I've found there's room for playfulness in this process. Sometimes, the path to profound self-discovery involves embracing unexpected approaches and maintaining a sense of curiosity.

What unexpected methods might yield new insights into our deepest held values?

I've also surprised myself at how quickly I went from being slightly skeptical about the use of values to seeing how they are a pragmatic tool that can be applied on a day-to-day basis.

Identifying your values is highly practical: by raising awareness about what provides you satisfaction, fulfillment, and a sense of purpose, you can take a more active role in making decisions and creating conditions for these to occur.

What's next?

In my next post I will describe the process that worked for me, and why that approach might (or might not) be a good fit for you.

I'll also write about how I used an artificial intelligence to assist exploring my values, and prompts that you can copy & paste into your preferred AI assistant to help explore your own core values.

I'll also share how I use awareness of my values & associated activities for how I've actually increased my day-to-day satisfaction and fulfillment.

I'd love to hear about other people's experiences with exploring their values. What tools and techniques did you use to discover your values? What did you learn? How have you applied them in your life?