Identifying your core values

When I first started thinking about identifying my core values, I had this vision of a March Madness-style playoff bracket system where values went head-to-head and I kept selecting a winner until I got down to the winner. This seemed like a perfectly valid method to defining my core values.

So I mapped out my brackets in Excel. Then I struggled with finding the right list of values to include as my first-round competitors. I kept adding values so my brackets got larger and larger.

Then I realized this is not a fair competition because I had no system to rank the values to populate the brackets. So I knew what I had to do: create sub-brackets. Think of them as qualifying brackets to make it to the final tournament. From there, things spiraled out of control.

Back to the research on this topic. I found lots of helpful articles and suggestions. Ultimately, I decided that I needed to “discover” my personal values based on my personal experiences rather than working from a checklist of values.

I found a few quiet moments to think about and journal on the following questions. Some of these questions were more helpful than others. Spend more time on the ones that are most helpful. Skip over the ones that are less helpful for you.

Here’s a list of questions to ask to find what is most meaningful to you:

• Think of the times when you felt really proud. What happened to make you feel proud?
• Think of the people that you admire the most. Why do you admire them? What have they done or accomplished? What behaviors do you admire? What qualities do they exhibit?
• Think of the times when you felt really happy or fulfilled. What happened to make you feel happy or fulfilled?
• Think of movies, books or news stories that inspired you. What about these stories did you find most inspiring?
• Think of the most meaningful moments in your life. What made those moments most meaningful to you?

Alternatively, you can look at negative inputs to identify what is most meaningful to you:

• Think about your own personal qualities. What qualities do you want to change about yourself?
• Think about the world. What do you want to change about the world?
• Think of movies, books or news stories that made you angry. What type of story or behavior makes you angry?
• Think of the most angry or frustrating moments from your life. What about these situations made you angry or frustrated?

Gather your responses to these questions and distill them into qualities exhibited in each instance. Categorize these qualities into a small number of similar groups. Find the best word to describe each category.

These are your personal core values.