How To Find Your Personal Core Values – (Worksheet)

The benefits of knowing your core values are enormous! It means that you can live in alignment with what is most important to you, and let go of the other stuff. Before we look at how to find your personal core values, we must first understand what they are.

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What are core values?

A core value is what’s most important to you in life at your very essence. If these values are threatened in any way, it leaves us with an unpleasant feeling. You may feel violated.

Let’s say that you value freedom to the highest importance. If you’re working in a job where you feel trapped, stuck in a toxic relationship, or generally don’t feel in control of your life, you’ll feel a strong unwanted emotion.

You’ll be eager to change something about it, but may not be fully aware of why. This is why self-discovery work is essential.

Read: 10 self-discovery questions that you need to ask yourself

Why personal core values are important

Knowing your top core values will give you more control and understanding of your life.

It will shape the decisions that you make and can be used in every area of your life. Careers, relationships, and business ventures all require there to be an alignment in values.

If you’re dating someone who values having a family as extremely important, but you don’t ever want children, that’s a big problem.

Some values won’t be as big of a deal for you (these wouldn’t be considered deal-breakers.) Whereas other ones would be an absolute no go! So, when you determine your top values, you will have more clarity around what they are.

Personal core values exercise

Now you know what values are and why they’re important, we’ll identify how to find your personal core values.

You can download this free core values worksheet, which will help you as we’re going through the next part.

Once you have it downloaded, open it up, and start picking out the words that resonate with you the most.

Step 1

Pick around 20-30 words that resonate with you from the values list (or add your own). Either write them down or print it off and circle or highlight them.

You can download the full list here.

Step 2

Now we want to break them down further and aim for just five words. To make this a little easier, I want you to try and group together certain words that could mean the same thing.

For example, money, wealth, freedom, or prosperity might all mean the same thing for you. If so, group these and pick one word that resonates the most.

Remember, the goal here is to get five values.

(You can also get this awesome core values card deck to share the experience with loved ones.)

Step 3

Congratulations! If you’ve made it this far, you’re doing great.

The last step here is to pick your number one core value. I know it might not be easy. But if you could only pick one thing, what would it be?

Mine is HEALTH.

I believe that without health, nothing else matters because it is the foundation of life.

What is most important to you?

I'd love to know your top five values. Let me know in the comments below if you feel like sharing.

Conclusion

I’d be guessing if I knew the exact numbers, but I estimate that very few people truly understand what their most significant core values are.

By taking the time to do this work, you’ll be setting yourself up for more success in your life. You can start living in full alignment with what matters most to you.

Now that you know how to find your personal core values, perhaps you’ll discover that it’s time to make some changes in your life.

If you’re looking to make some rapid shifts and growth in your life, you can apply for a discovery call with me here. I work with just a select number of committed individuals who are keen to grow in their life. Together we can identify where you’re at and create a plan to take you forward to where you’d love to be.