Defining your values is about identifying your core principles through honest self-reflection. It’s about looking at your best moments, your biggest frustrations, and what genuinely inspires you to build a personal compass—not a rigid rulebook. This compass guides everything from major career moves to simple daily interactions, ensuring your actions consistently line up with who you really are.
Why Defining Your Values Is a Practical Compass
Before we jump into the "how," it's worth understanding why this matters. Think of your values as a practical, everyday tool. They’re the internal compass that helps you navigate life with more confidence and clarity, especially when you feel lost or pulled in a million different directions.
Once you have a clear set of principles, making decisions gets simpler. You escape the endless loop of overthinking because you have a reliable filter. For example, that job offer with the huge salary might look great, but if you know you deeply value "creative freedom" and "work-life balance," you can weigh the opportunity against what truly makes you tick. This clarity cuts down on decision fatigue and builds trust in your own judgment.
A Foundation for Meaningful Choices
Your values are the very foundation of a fulfilling life. They shape your relationships, your career path, and even how you decide to spend your free time. This isn't just a personal exercise; it's a process deeply connected to the world around us.
Since 1981, the World Values Survey has been gathering data from nearly 400,000 people in almost 100 countries. This incredible body of research shows that while our values feel intensely personal, they're also shaped by our culture and experiences, proving just how much they impact us on a global scale.
Values aren't about being "good" or "bad." They are about being authentic. The goal is to identify what is genuinely true for you, not what you think your values should be.
From Vague Ideas to Actionable Principles
Getting clear on your values helps you shift from a reactive state to a proactive one. Instead of just drifting, you can intentionally steer your life toward what gives life meaning. When you know that "community" is a core value, you're more likely to join a local club or volunteer. If "growth" is a top priority, you'll naturally start seeking out new challenges and learning opportunities.
To make this feel more concrete, the table below breaks down how these concepts translate directly into action.
Quick Guide to Defining Your Values
This table summarizes the core process of moving from an abstract idea to a tangible outcome based on your values.
| Concept | Actionable Step | Example Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Self-Reflection | Identify a time you felt deeply proud or fulfilled. | Realizing that mentoring a colleague (Contribution) brought you more joy than a promotion (Status). |
| Prioritization | Choose between two conflicting options based on your values. | Turning down a higher-paying but stressful job to protect your Well-being. |
| Alignment | Audit your daily schedule to see if it reflects your values. | Scheduling weekly calls with family because Connection is a top priority. |
When your daily choices align with your deepest principles, it creates a powerful sense of purpose and integrity. Your decisions just feel right because they’re rooted in your authentic self, giving you a steady anchor in an ever-changing world.
Finding Value Clues in Your Life Story
Forget the self-help aisle and personality quizzes for a minute. The most powerful clues to what you truly value aren't out there somewhere—they're already woven into the fabric of your own life story. They're embedded in your memories, both the highlight reel and the bloopers.
If you learn to look back with intention, you can start connecting the dots. This is less about reminiscing and more about becoming a detective in your own life. You're searching for emotional undercurrents. When did you feel most alive, engaged, or proud? What situations left you feeling angry, drained, or just plain wrong?
These moments are the breadcrumbs. Let's follow them.
Uncovering Peaks and Valleys
We’ll start by exploring the high and low points of your journey. Why? Because these are the moments charged with the most emotional energy, and that energy is incredibly revealing. Grab a notebook or open a blank document and give yourself a few minutes with these prompts. No overthinking allowed.
Your Peak Moments (The Highs):
- Actionable Task: Write down two or three times you felt genuinely happy, proud, or fulfilled. These can be big achievements or small, quiet moments.
- For each memory, ask: What was happening? Who was with you? What specific role did you play?
- Most Important Question: What about that experience made it feel so good? Try to name the specific quality behind the joy.
For instance, a peak moment might be launching a major project at work. But when you dig in, was the pride from the public success, or from solving a complex problem (Growth)? Or maybe it was the camaraderie you felt with your team (Collaboration). Another peak could be a simple weekend camping trip. The feeling it gave you might point to a deep need for Nature and Simplicity.
Learning from Frustration
Just as telling as your peaks are the moments that made you want to pull your hair out. Those times you felt frustrated, resentful, or just… off. These experiences are almost always a sign that one of your core values is being stepped on. That internal friction you feel? It’s a powerful signal.
Think of frustration as a compass. It points you away from what you don't want, which by default, helps you see what you do want more clearly. When something feels wrong, it’s often because a core value is being ignored or violated.
Actionable Task: Think about a time you were deeply dissatisfied, maybe in a job, a relationship, or a personal project.
- Was it a micromanager who questioned your every move? That frustration likely points to a powerful need for Autonomy or Freedom.
- Were you silently fuming over a team member who wasn't pulling their weight? That probably highlights a strong value for Accountability or Fairness.
- Did you feel drained after a weekend packed with social events? That might indicate you value Solitude or Calm.
When you start analyzing your emotional reactions like this, you move beyond just labeling experiences as "good" or "bad." You start to understand the why behind your feelings. This is the first real, practical step in learning how to define your values—not by picking them from a generic list, but by uncovering them from the rich, messy, and uniquely compelling story of your own life.
Translating Experiences Into Core Values
So you’ve dug into your personal stories and now you’re sitting with a collection of powerful memories. That’s the hard part done. But how do you turn those raw, emotional insights into a clear, usable list of core values?
Think of yourself as a translator. Your job is to convert the language of experience into the language of principles. This isn’t about cramming your complex life into neat little boxes. It's a surprisingly simple but profound exercise: connecting the dots between what happened, how it made you feel, and the underlying value that feeling points to.
This is how you find the golden thread that runs through your life.
As you can see, your most meaningful experiences are the source material. Your feelings are the indicators. And the clues they provide lead directly to your core values.
The Experience-to-Value Framework
Let's make this really practical. Grab that notebook again and draw three columns: Experience, Feeling, and Value.
Start by jotting down a meaningful experience—it could be a peak moment or a point of major frustration. Next, pinpoint the strongest emotion tied to it. Finally, assign a single value word that captures the essence of that feeling.
Here’s a practical example:
- Experience: "Mentoring a junior colleague until they successfully led their own project."
- Feeling: "A deep sense of fulfillment and pride in their success."
- Value Word: Contribution or Growth.
It works just as well for negative experiences:
- Experience: "Working on a team where one person consistently missed deadlines, causing stress for everyone."
- Feeling: "Intense frustration and a sense of unfairness."
- Value Word: Accountability or Reliability.
By naming the value, you're not just labeling an event. You are articulating a core principle that governs your sense of right and wrong, fulfillment, and purpose. This is a crucial step in understanding your personal compass.
Building Your Master List
Now, repeat this exercise with several different memories from your life. Don't stress about finding the "perfect" word right away. The goal is to create a working draft. You'll probably start to see certain themes and words pop up again and again.
If you get stuck, here are some common value words to get you started:
- Adventure
- Authenticity
- Community
- Creativity
- Freedom
- Integrity
- Justice
- Security
- Wisdom
Of course, your personal values are unique to you, but they are also shaped by the world we live in. Cultural and socioeconomic factors play a huge role in what we prioritize. For instance, data from the World Values Survey shows that in Sweden, about 94% of people find homosexuality justified, while that number is only 2% in Egypt. These stats highlight how societal context can influence deeply held principles like tolerance and personal freedom. You can explore more of these global value trends on eui.eu.
As you build out your list, you’re essentially creating a blueprint for a more aligned life. These words become the foundation for your decisions and actions, helping you find your way. For a closer look at how others have defined their direction, check out these inspiring life purpose examples.
How to Prioritize Your Most Important Values
Okay, so you've done the hard work of digging through your life experiences and have a list of words that resonate. But right now, you’re probably looking at a pretty long list. Maybe 15, 20, or even more potential values.
That's a fantastic start, but a list that long isn't very useful for making real-world decisions. The real magic happens when you distill it down to your 3 to 5 core values. These are the non-negotiables that should steer your ship, guiding everything from major life decisions to your daily habits. Remember, when everything is a priority, nothing is.
Using Value Bracketing to Find Your True North
So how do we whittle down the list? One of the most powerful techniques is value bracketing. It’s a simple but effective exercise where you force two of your values to compete against each other in a hypothetical scenario to reveal your true instincts.
Actionable Task: Take two values from your list and create a tough, realistic choice that pits them against each other.
- Security vs. Adventure: Would you take a stable, high-paying job that feels a bit dull, or would you jump at the chance to launch a passion project with an uncertain financial future?
- Community vs. Independence: Would you relocate for a once-in-a-lifetime solo opportunity, even if it meant leaving behind your closest friends and family?
- Creativity vs. Stability: Would you choose a role with total creative freedom but a wildly fluctuating income, or a more structured job with a predictable salary but far less creative input?
Your gut reaction to these choices is pure gold. That feeling of discomfort or tension you get when making the choice? That’s the whole point. It forces you to bypass the idealized version of yourself and connect with what you would actually do.
A Real-World Scenario
Let's look at a real example. I once worked with a client, Sarah, a talented graphic designer who was feeling completely stuck. Her values list had both Financial Security and Creative Freedom right at the top, and they felt equally important.
She was facing a classic dilemma. A huge corporation offered her a senior designer role with a fantastic salary, great benefits, and rock-solid stability. The catch? The work was creatively stifling—mostly just applying rigid brand templates.
At the exact same time, a small startup she'd been following offered her a lead creative position. The pay was a huge step down, and the company's future was a big question mark. But they were offering her complete control over the brand’s visual direction. Total creative freedom.
By bracketing her values, she had to make a real choice. After a lot of soul-searching, she realized that the idea of doing uninspired, cookie-cutter work, even for a great paycheck, felt soul-crushing. She took the startup job. For Sarah, that tough decision made it clear: when push came to shove, Creative Freedom was her non-negotiable.
Putting Your Values Into Action Every Day
Defining your values is that incredible "aha!" moment of clarity. But let's be honest, it's only the first step. The real magic happens when you move from simply knowing your values to actively living them. This is where your principles stop being abstract ideas and become a practical compass for your daily life.
The whole point is to close the gap between the person you aspire to be and the person you actually are, day in and day out. That journey begins with a simple, brutally honest look at how you're living right now.
Perform a Simple Values Audit
Actionable Task: Pull up your calendar and your bank statement from the last month. Where did your time, money, and energy actually go?
Hold that reality up against the core values you just identified. This isn't about beating yourself up; it's about building awareness.
- Example: You say "Connection" is a top value, but your calendar is a sea of solo work projects and evenings lost to scrolling. You've just discovered a misalignment.
- Example: You value "Growth," but you haven't spent any time or money on a book, course, or new experience that scared you a little. That's a clear signal your daily routines aren't feeding that core part of you.
This audit isn't a report card; it's your starting line.
Your schedule is a moral document. It reflects what you truly value, not just what you say you value. By auditing your time, you get an unfiltered look at your priorities in action.
Translate Values Into Small, Actionable Steps
Big, sweeping changes rarely stick. The secret is to focus on tiny, consistent behaviors that reinforce your values. The key is to make it so easy to act on your values that it feels almost silly not to do it.
This approach brings a lofty ideal like "Community" or "Creativity" down to earth, turning it into something you can do today.
- If you value "Community": Instead of planning a big party, send one text each day to a friend you haven't spoken to in a while.
- If you value "Creativity": Don't commit to writing a novel. Dedicate 10 minutes each morning to journaling or sketching—before you open your email.
- If you value "Well-being": You don't need a gym membership. Commit to a five-minute walk outside during your lunch break, no matter what.
These small wins build momentum. They slowly reshape your habits until, one day, you realize your daily life naturally reflects what matters most to you. This alignment is also the bedrock for the next step in your journey. When you’re ready to zoom out and define your life’s direction, you’ll find that these daily actions provide the raw material for how to create a personal mission statement.
Common Questions About Defining Personal Values
As you start digging into what your values really are, it's almost guaranteed you'll hit a few sticking points. That’s a completely normal part of the process. It’s a good sign—it means you’re taking this seriously.
Think of these questions not as roadblocks, but as opportunities to go a little deeper and find even more clarity. Let's walk through some of the most common ones.
What If My Values Seem to Conflict?
This one comes up all the time. It’s completely normal if your top values feel like they're playing tug-of-war. Maybe you find yourself wrestling with a deep need for both "Adventure" and "Security," or you crave "Community" but also cherish your "Independence." This doesn’t mean you're a walking contradiction; it just means you're human.
The goal isn't to pick one and ditch the other. Instead, the real work is figuring out how they can exist together.
Practical Example: You might discover that having a stable home base (Security) is the very thing that gives you the confidence to take calculated risks and book that big trip (Adventure). Or, you could create a "Community" of fellow "Independent" freelancers who support each other.
Think of it as integration, not elimination. One value can create the necessary foundation for you to pursue another. The key is to find a balance that feels authentic to you, rather than seeing them as an all-or-nothing choice.
How Often Should I Revisit My Values?
While your core values tend to be pretty stable, the way you prioritize and express them will absolutely evolve. Life happens. A career change, a new relationship, or a move to a different city will naturally shift your perspective.
Actionable Insight: Schedule a quick check-in with your values once a year. Your birthday or the new year are perfect times for this. This isn't about starting from scratch. It’s just a moment to pause and ask yourself, "Do these principles still feel like my true north? Is there anything I need to adjust to better reflect who I am today?" This regular maintenance keeps your internal compass calibrated.
What Is the Difference Between Values and Goals?
This is such an important distinction. Getting this clear is the key to actually using your values to build a life you love.
Here’s a simple way to think about it:
- Values are your "why." They are the underlying principles guiding your life—things like "Growth," "Honesty," or "Connection." Think of them as the direction on your compass (e.g., "traveling north").
- Goals are your "what." They are the specific, tangible things you want to achieve—like "Learn a new language" or "Get a promotion." These are the destinations you mark on your map (e.g., "reaching Chicago").
Your values should be the driving force behind your goals. For instance, if you value Growth, it makes perfect sense that you'd set a goal to learn a new skill or read 20 books this year. Your goals become so much more powerful and motivating when they're directly hooked into your core values.
Ready to move from confusion to clarity? At How To Find Your Life Purpose, we provide the tools to help you uncover what truly matters. Take our free quiz to start your journey and build a life aligned with your authentic self. Start the Find Your Life Purpose Quiz today.