Finding your personal core values

Why it matters to know our core values?

Here and now, we are always making decisions. How we are taking those decisions is guided by our personal values, making an evaluation of the situation based on those core values. Those values have emerged of the multiple experiences we had: education, society, religion, culture, family, friends…

Therefore, to be aware of what really matters and guide our judgement, it is important that we have a good understanding of what drives our decisions. Those core values shape who we are (γν?θι σεαυτ?ν), and therefore are part of our identity. When aligned with our actions, goals it can bring us peace, satisfaction, energy no matter how difficult the journey is, on the other side it can drain us down.

What are core values?

There are tens, or possibly hundreds of values. As we are all unique, with our own experiences we don’t have the same perspective on all those values. The driving forces at the root of our decisions is representative of our core values. A trivial example is whether we are going to indulge in an appetizing cookie: eat it because it will bring us a moment of joy, eat it because we are curious how it tastes, eat it because we can, … refuse it because we are fasting, refuse it because its ingredients do not suit us, refuse it because we can… The core value behind our decision can be wellbeing, curiosity, respect, generosity…

The core values can change over time, as we face new experiences; however there are relatively stable. All sets of core values are acceptable, there are neither good or bad, they all come with their Yin and Yang.

How do you find your core values?

There is no definite way for finding your core values. We need to pause and reflect and possibly something will emerge. It could be satisfying to repeat the exercise until that set of core values feels right, remember there is no right or wrong and it could change over time.

A possible way to do this is to put ourself in a peaceful place, possibly with a pen and paper. First we ground ourself, for example by taking a few deep breaths, or closing your eyes and feel our body. Then focus our mind, thinking of:???????

• The most meaningful moments in our life
• The moments we felt the least satisfied
• The stories that inspire us
• The situations that frustrate us

And asking ourself:????????

• What makes it so??????????
• What makes it important for us??????????????
• How those moments/stories/situations resonated with our expectations????
• What does that tell you about our values?

Maybe, some values will come up, if not we can consider a list like this one:

A typical, non-exclusive, list of values

Do some values start emerging, feeling free to choose our own values and not to limit ourself to that list. Then if we think there are too many values, we can place them on that grid below, noticing how it feels as we move the value from one cell to another:

Simple grid to list core values

We can repeat asking ourself the previous questions and considering the values we have already taken, until we feel satisfy with what we put in most important, at least for now.

We could find one core value or tens of them, a useful number is typically between 3 and 7. Too few, we could miss some of our own complexity, too many we could be overwhelm with information; yet again there is no right or wrong.

Hopefully, the reader will find that article somewhat useful in supporting greater awareness of what can be beyond the decisions we are choosing to make.