examples of core values essay

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Free Core Values Essay Example

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: People , Value , Integrity , Authenticity , Life , Goals , Courage , Compassion

Published: 12/05/2021

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Core values

Core values are principles that guide the behavior of people and also supports the goals and purpose of an individual. They usually define who the person is. They are necessary virtues that guide people in achieving their visions and missions. Different people have different core values that assist them in their respective areas of duty. I have different core values that define who I am. Core values cannot be helpful to a person unless they maintain the integrity with them. I have been able to achieve different goals and targets because of living a life that is aligned with my core values. Core values enable people to have meaningful lives, thereby giving them the feeling of satisfaction that comes when one achieves the goals and mission. The most important personal values I observe are integrity, authenticity, courage, compassion, truthfulness, and trust. My first core value is integrity. It is a quality that enables people to live with honest and observing strong moral values. It allows me to maintain upright morals and good ethical standards in whatever I do. Standing by the value of integrity is hard. For that reason, I treat integrity as the only option. It acts as an internal compass that directs the person to the right directing whatever he or she is doing. The other core value I observe is authenticity. Through this value, I live genuinely by being honest with me. It helps me accept my limits, knowing what I’m capable of and what I’m not capable of doing. It is a significant value since it helps me abide by other core values by being aligned with them. There are many ways through which I enhance the authenticity virtue. It is possible through being courageous to self-disclose what I can, being transparent, and gauging myself to know my limits. Courage is the other value that is associated with authenticity. With courage, you do everything without fears of what other people may think of you. It helps me take risks and doing what I think is integral to me. Compassion is the fourth core value I observe. Being kind and sensitive to other people is important. Understanding people and being empathetic to them during problems increases the chances of the same people helping you during the problem. People usually forget what you say, but they will never forget what you do. Therefore, compassion helps to perform good deeds for other people. The said core values have different roles they play in my life, although they assist in one goal that is self-development. I live by my values in everything I do. By so doing, I always find myself mostly doing the right thing. I am always constantly principled with making a change in my life, and this becomes the critical reasons why I adopted the said core values. Core values are not permanent and are sometimes broken depending on the circumstances. Values are not laws and are not enforceable hence I can at some situations break them. Some situations can make me reconsider my core values or at some stages change them. In the case where I am involved in crime, and there is the possibility of facing conviction, I will be forced to reconsider some of the values. For instance, it can be a situation whereby if you tell the truth, you will be found guilty, the only option will be going against the value of integrity to avoid the sentence. That is an example of a situation where I will reconsider my values.

Dennis, S. (2012). The Strength perspective in social work practice. Pearson Higher Ed. Jerzy, S. (2007). Core Values and Cultural Identity. Ethnic and racial studies, 4(1), 75-90. Shalom, S., & Vittorio, G. (2010). Basic Personal Values, Core Political Values, and Voting: Longitudinal Analysis. Political Psychology, 31(3), 421-452. Wreight, M. (2015). Personal core values. Retrieved from The integrity coach: www.theintrgrity coach.com?personal-core-values

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Essays About Values: 5 Essay Examples Plus 10 Prompts

Similar to how our values guide us, let this guide with essays about values and writing prompts help you write your essay.

Values are the core principles that guide the actions we take and the choices we make. They are the cornerstones of our identity. On a community or organizational level, values are the moral code that every member must embrace to live harmoniously and work together towards shared goals. 

We acquire our values from different sources such as parents, mentors, friends, cultures, and experiences. All of these build on one another — some rejected as we see fit — for us to form our perception of our values and what will lead us to a happy and fulfilled life.

5 Essay Examples

1. what today’s classrooms can learn from ancient cultures by linda flanagan, 2. stand out to your hiring panel with a personal value statement by maggie wooll, 3. make your values mean something by patrick m. lencioni, 4. how greed outstripped need by beth azar, 5. a shift in american family values is fueling estrangement by joshua coleman, 1. my core values, 2. how my upbringing shaped my values, 3. values of today’s youth, 4. values of a good friend, 5. an experience that shaped your values, 6. remembering our values when innovating, 7. important values of school culture, 8. books that influenced your values, 9. religious faith and moral values, 10. schwartz’s theory of basic values.

“Connectedness is another core value among Maya families, and teachers seek to cultivate it… While many American teachers also value relationships with their students, that effort is undermined by the competitive environment seen in many Western classrooms.”

Ancient communities keep their traditions and values of a hands-off approach to raising their kids. They also preserve their hunter-gatherer mindsets and others that help their kids gain patience, initiative, a sense of connectedness, and other qualities that make a helpful child.

“How do you align with the company’s mission and add to its culture? Because it contains such vital information, your personal value statement should stand out on your resume or in your application package.”

Want to rise above other candidates in the jobs market? Then always highlight your value statement. A personal value statement should be short but still, capture the aspirations and values of the company. The essay provides an example of a captivating value statement and tips for crafting one.

“Values can set a company apart from the competition by clarifying its identity and serving as a rallying point for employees. But coming up with strong values—and sticking to them—requires real guts.”

Along with the mission and vision, clear values should dictate a company’s strategic goals. However, several CEOs still needed help to grasp organizational values fully. The essay offers a direction in setting these values and impresses on readers the necessity to preserve them at all costs. 

“‘He compared the values held by people in countries with more competitive forms of capitalism with the values of folks in countries that have a more cooperative style of capitalism… These countries rely more on strategic cooperation… rather than relying mostly on free-market competition as the United States does.”

The form of capitalism we have created today has shaped our high value for material happiness. In this process, psychologists said we have allowed our moral and ethical values to drift away from us for greed to take over. You can also check out these essays about utopia .

“From the adult child’s perspective, there might be much to gain from an estrangement: the liberation from those perceived as hurtful or oppressive, the claiming of authority in a relationship, and the sense of control over which people to keep in one’s life. For the mother or father, there is little benefit when their child cuts off contact.”

It is most challenging when the bonds between parent and child weaken in later years. Psychologists have been navigating this problem among modern families, which is not an easy conflict to resolve. It requires both parties to give their best in humbling themselves and understanding their loved ones, no matter how divergent their values are. 

10 Writing  Prompts On Essays About Values

For this topic prompt, contemplate your non-negotiable core values and why you strive to observe them at all costs. For example, you might value honesty and integrity above all else. Expound on why cultivating fundamental values leads to a happy and meaningful life. Finally, ponder other values you would like to gain for your future self. Write down how you have been practicing to adopt these aspired values. 

Many of our values may have been instilled in us during childhood. This essay discusses the essential values you gained from your parents or teachers while growing up. Expound on their importance in helping you flourish in your adult years. Then, offer recommendations on what households, schools, or communities can do to ensure that more young people adopt these values.

Is today’s youth lacking essential values, or is there simply a shift in what values generations uphold? Strive to answer this and write down the healthy values that are emerging and dying. Then think of ways society can preserve healthy values while doing away with bad ones. Of course, this change will always start at home, so also encourage parents, as role models, to be mindful of their words, actions and behavior.  

The greatest gift in life is friendship. In this essay, enumerate the top values a friend should have. You may use your best friend as an example. Then, cite the best traits your best friend has that have influenced you to be a better version of yourself. Finally, expound on how these values can effectively sustain a healthy friendship in the long term. 

We all have that one defining experience that has forever changed how we see life and the values we hold dear. Describe yours through storytelling with the help of our storytelling guide . This experience may involve a decision, a conversation you had with someone, or a speech you heard at an event.  

With today’s innovation, scientists can make positive changes happen. But can we truly exercise our values when we fiddle with new technologies whose full extent of positive and adverse effects we do not yet understand such as AI? Contemplate this question and look into existing regulations on how we curb the creation or use of technologies that go against our values. Finally, assess these rules’ effectiveness and other options society has. 

Highlight a school’s role in honing a person’s values. Then, look into the different aspects of your school’s culture. Identify which best practices distinct in your school are helping students develop their values. You could consider whether your teachers exhibit themselves as admirable role models or specific parts of the curriculum that help you build good character. 

In this essay, recommend your readers to pick up your favorite books, particularly those that served as pathways to enlightening insights and values. To start, provide a summary of the book’s story. It would be better if you could do so without revealing too much to avoid spoiling your readers’ experience. Then, elaborate on how you have applied the values you learned from the book.

For many, religious faith is the underlying reason for their values. For this prompt, explore further the inextricable links between religion and values. If you identify with a certain religion, share your thoughts on the values your sector subscribes to. You can also tread the more controversial path on the conflicts of religious values with socially accepted beliefs or practices, such as abortion. 

Dive deeper into the ten universal values that social psychologist Shalom Schwartz came up with: power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security. Look into their connections and conflicts against each other. Then, pick your favorite value and explain how you relate to it the most. Also, find if value conflicts within you, as theorized by Schwartz.

Make sure to check out our round-up of the best essay checkers . If you want to use the latest grammar software, read our guide on using an AI grammar checker .

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How to Focus on Your Values in Your Personal Statement

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by CEG Essay Specialist Kaila Barber in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

What’s Covered: 

Identifying your own values, demonstrate your values with examples.

• Reflecting on Your Experiences

It’s important to keep in mind what your reader is hoping to learn from your personal statement. The statement is an opportunity to reflect on your experiences and demonstrate how you think about and relate to the world around you. Specifically, what are some of your values? What’s meaningful to you? What do you find important? 

Personal values can be things like communication, patience, nature, health, personal development, courage, self-love, authenticity, healthy boundaries, or even humor. Before you start drafting your personal statement, take a moment to reflect on the things that you find important and why. 

We’re all very different people coming from different backgrounds, and we have different experiences that impact our individual values. While some of your values will overlap with those of other people, your personal reflection on the values that resonate most with you will separate your statement from someone else’s. 

The best way to include your values, skills, and traits in your essay is to pair them with specific examples and anecdotes. Each anecdote should align with at least one of the values that you find most important and should be accompanied by your personal reflection on the value and its related experience. 

Here’s an example. A student does not have a parent or guardian around to shoulder the expenses of caring for them and their younger sibling. In their outline, the student says that they value autonomy, financial stability, and family. Throughout the essay, they demonstrate these values by talking about getting a part-time job to help support the family and caring for their sibling at home. They also excel academically and even petition to have an AP Physics II course offered at their school. 

The student has shown autonomy by taking the initiative to petition for the new course and by getting a job. They have also demonstrated that both financial stability and family are important to them by pitching in to support their parent and sibling.

Your examples should show your reader your values by being specific and personal to your background and experiences.

Reflecting on Your Experiences 

Reflecting on your values is an equally important part of the personal statement. Your reflections or insight should focus on not only your experiences but also who you are and who you want to become. The insight you include in your essay shows that you’ve really found meaning from your personal experiences.

Insight can take a few forms. A common way to show insight is by writing about a growth experience. Show how you went from point A in your life to point B, and share the lessons you’ve learned along the way. For example, people often reflect on how navigating a strenuous activity or challenge changed the way that they thought about themselves and what they could handle. Reflecting on that change in confidence is one way to demonstrate insight.

One of the clearest ways to explore insight is to self-reflect and write about how something has either connected you to, influenced, or reframed how you think of your own values. Maybe you once pushed yourself too hard, and that experience showed you the value of rest and mindfulness. Or perhaps a change in circumstances shifted or redefined your values to an extent. 

For example, a person might say that while they craved stability as a child because of their home life, they now see the value of risk-taking and adventure in enriching their own knowledge and experiences. In this example, both security and risk are important to the speaker, but their experiences ultimately shifted weight from one value to another.

Regardless of how you approach your personal statement, insight is the overarching meaning that you take away from the relevant experiences and values you’ve shared.

Are you looking for more guidance as you draft your personal statement? Check out this post on how to come up with a strong topic that wows your admissions reader!

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Home Essay Samples Life

Essay Samples on Values

The essential role of human values in the 21st century.

The 21st century presents a myriad of challenges and opportunities that call for a renewed emphasis on human values as guiding principles to shape individual behaviors, societal norms, and global interactions. In an era marked by technological advancements, cultural diversification, and interconnectedness, the role of...

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Human Values in 21st Century: A Blueprint for a Better World

The 21st century presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities that demand a reevaluation of the values that guide human behavior. In this era of rapid technological advancements, cultural diversification, and interconnectedness, the importance of human values in the 21st century cannot be overstated....

Unpacking the Value of Community Service Hours

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The Power of Censorship: Safeguarding Societal Values

The debate surrounding censorship persuasive is one that evokes strong emotions and diverse opinions. It raises questions about the delicate balance between protecting public morality and preserving the ideals of freedom of expression. While some argue that censorship stifles creativity and limits access to diverse...

The Ascent of Money: Is Money the Root of All Evil

In Niall Ferguson’s The Ascent of Money, Ferguson analyzes the history of money, banking, and credit. He tracks the development of currency as a form of trade, explores its growth and effects on society, and looks forward to how it may continue to develop in...

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Being Proud of Your Values and Beliefs

Hear the phrase “be yourself” all the time but what exactly does it mean. Some people can argue that “being yourself” has to do with your relationship with others, and that is by giving attention to what people think about you; while others can argue...

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Understanding What Is The Special Value To Life

Value of life is a question is which many of us try to answer how valuable is our life, how valuable are peoples lives in general. This could be a dark subject if the outcome might be as positive as someone may think. When we...

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Defining The Meaning And Value Of Human Life

The biggest cliché of all the questions already had the most varied range of answers. The value of life could even be answered by simple a way: that each individual constructs its own meaning. That is because everyone has their impossible mission in here. Each...

Finding The True Meaning And Value Of Life In Plato's Works

The universal question, “What is the meaning of life?” has been questioned since the beginning of civilization. Answers given by most individuals in today’s society dissent greatly from the answers of Roman and Greek civilizations thousands of years back. Great philosophers such as Socrates, Plato,...

The Meaning Of Life And Value Of Life Based On Plato's Philosophy

What is the meaning of life? There are numerous cultural beliefs on how life should be lived by following certain religious or traditional practices. These “meanings of life” could differ based on racial or religious beliefs but in a way, I believe there is an...

Searching For What Is The Value Of Life

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The Value Of A Single Life And Its Meaning

Close to 6 million innocent animals enter shelters each year. All across the world, people are faced with the issue of how to deal with the overpopulation of stray animals. However, the murder of these animals should not be justified just because the problem is...

The Impact Of Religion On Defining What Is Value Of Life

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Personal Dignity And Integrity As The Core Of Personal Values

'The standard of being honest and possessing powerful personal values' is the vocabulary term of integrity. In my view, terms were never useful for anything except for composing papers. Integrity is a person's way of existence. Every day we confront decisions in life that we...

Exposition Of Wicks Concept Of Human Right And Value To Life

Human right to life is the most fundamental of all human rights. In her book, The Right to Life and Conflicting Interests, Wicks (2010: 1), begins by noting that ‘the life on earth is diverse and abundant. From simple bacteria and virus through to the...

Money Is Not Everything: The Importance Of Knowledge

Money is one of the most sensitive issues when we mention it under any circumstances. It is also an indispensable thing for each people. In many people's opinion, money is very important and valuable. They think that with money, we will have everything. Besides these...

Importance Of Ethical Values In Islam: Patience, Truthfulness

The ethical values are very important in human life and play a vital role in human life. Ethics /manners are complete code of life without manners we cannot spend a better life. Quran emphasized us for better ethical values. In this paper the importance of...

Analysis Of Core Values Of The United States Airmen

Core values can be defined as someone’s central beliefs that are guiding principles and dictate their behavior. Usually, core values are used to help a person understand the difference between right and wrong. My core values were not all present when I first enlisted, but...

The Efficiency Of Common Law System

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Analysis of Leadership and Motivation Theories in the Movie Coach Carter

Being a leader is one of the most responsible roles one can take. An effective leader knows what is best for the project team as well as have a complete understanding of the needs of employees, peers as well as of the superiors. Outstanding leaders...

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Moral Values I Was Taught by My Parents

Love. Caring One of them is love and caring as it is the fundamental for all the children in the family. Since young, they used to give me love and care by giving adoring environment at home. My father constantly invested his energy and time...

The Real Value of Treasurable Moments in Achebe's "Civil Peace" and Maupassant's "The Necklace"

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Ethics: A Guiding Light in Human Life

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Exploring the Importance of Ethics in Our Lives

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Literature Analysis of Anna Quindlen's Article Life of the Closed Mind

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The Theme of Nonconformity in the Works of Chris McCandless

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A Man For All Seasons: The Destructive Power of One's Morals

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Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe: Questioning of Own Values with the Change of Era

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My Key Personal Values That Make Up My Individuality

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Ideals In Dan Brown'S Da Vinci Code For Aringarosa And Collet

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The Values and Codes of Behaviour in Liberal Studies

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How the Air Force Core Values Align with My Individual Values

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The Renaissance Value of Humanism

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Personal Values In "What Should A Billionaire Give" And "Dumpster Diving"

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Values and Human Conscience in Shakespeare's King Henry IV

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Representation of Messages and Values in the Tom Burton's Filmography

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The Impact of Religious Values on One's Worldviews

Humans have struggled throughout the centuries with the complication and doubt of our humanity. I ask myself, when I think about worldview, is what we are as humans? Which I find to be difficult and does not have an easy answer. My first understanding of...

Life of Pi: Journey of Values and Self-Exploration

This story, from my viewpoint, is a fanatic one. The realness the author involves in the story makes readers believing. On the other hand, he wants to describe how hard the life of the protagonist, PI’s life was. This story starts with normal family life,...

Antigone and Creon: Discussion of Values and Justice

Occurring in the moral realm, the major conflict in Sophocles' Antigone finds its very essence in the binary opposition of two disparate minds, the upholder of divine law and the advocate of human law. This clash between two social forces is embodied by the author...

• Antigone Tragic Hero

Teacher's Recollection of Life and Values

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Realization Of The Value Of Sacrifice

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Social Values In Singapore And Their Role For Economy

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Ethical Dilemmas: Personal Values versus Professional Ethics

The values I personally hold dearest and strive every day to realize, exemplify, and uphold for others as well as myself are fairness, social justice, tolerance, integrity, dignity, and equality. These values are deeply rooted in my personality and have, for as long as I...

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My Valiues In Community, Moral Decisions And Professional Choice

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The Process Of Becoming Superior Human Beings

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Best topics on Values

1. The Essential Role of Human Values in the 21st Century

2. Human Values in 21st Century: A Blueprint for a Better World

3. Unpacking the Value of Community Service Hours

4. The Power of Censorship: Safeguarding Societal Values

5. The Ascent of Money: Is Money the Root of All Evil

6. Being Proud of Your Values and Beliefs

7. Understanding What Is The Special Value To Life

8. Defining The Meaning And Value Of Human Life

9. Finding The True Meaning And Value Of Life In Plato’s Works

10. The Meaning Of Life And Value Of Life Based On Plato’s Philosophy

11. Searching For What Is The Value Of Life

12. The Value Of A Single Life And Its Meaning

13. The Impact Of Religion On Defining What Is Value Of Life

14. Personal Dignity And Integrity As The Core Of Personal Values

15. Exposition Of Wicks Concept Of Human Right And Value To Life

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How to Discover Your Core Values List (and Use Them to Make Better Decisions)

June 14, 2017 By Taylor Pearson

TL;DR Making a core values list takes 15 minutes and will help you make better decisions.

Note: If you’d like to skip straight to the full list of personal values, click here .

Have you ever been faced with a difficult decision and not known which direction to take?

Have you ever spent days or weeks or months going back and forth on a decision? You start with “Yes I will do it,” then “no I won’t,” then back to “yes I will.”

Assuming you’re human, the answer to either of those questions is “yes.”

So how do you decide what to say yes to? And what to say no to?

You need to have a list of personal values to refer to.

Want a step-by-step guide to finding your personal values for the first time?

A Personal Values Definition

What are personal values? Personal values (sometimes called core values) are broad concepts that can be applied over and over again across a range of circumstances, as opposed to narrow answers to specific questions.

Your core values are what you consider most important in your life, literally what you “value.”

Whether you are conscious of them or not, you have values for every part of your life — parenting values, investing values, work values, and health values. There are also more overarching life values.

An example of a value would be:

Self-development : to keep growing, advancing, or improving in knowledge, skills, character, or life experience

This value could help you answer questions like “Should I take a slightly higher paying job where I won’t learn as much, or a lower paying one where I will develop my skills a lot faster?”

All successful people have values that allow them to achieve their goals. If you don’t have values, you are just reacting to events that happen in your life without thinking about how to best react to them in a way that lines up with what’s important to you.

Having a Core Values List Helps You Make Better Decisions

Most people have a bad taste in their mouth about core values because we typically hear about them in the context of companies that often blatantly disregard them.

Enron had a list of four core values including “integrity” and “communication,” which they talked about publicly, while behind the scenes they were actually lying and hiding information from their own employees and shareholders.

You’ve probably worked for a company that had a list of core values posted somewhere, but they didn’t seem to make any impact on the way the company was actually run.

But the truth is that creating a list of personal values is both useful and practical, because you can apply them directly to your own life. I make decisions based on my list every single week.

One of my core values is courage.

I discovered this was a core value for me, because I noticed a tendency in myself to pick projects that were not risky enough and have them fail as a result.

I would have the choice between two opportunities, and I would say “this one will almost certainly work, while the other one is a bit riskier, so I’ll do the easy one.”

Then I would start working on the project, and because it didn’t really stretch me, I would get bored or feel like I wasn’t reaching for what I was capable of. That would end with me quitting or doing subpar work.

In cases where I picked the seemingly riskier choice, I became very engaged in the project and while I was working on it, my capabilities grew to be able to actually do it well.

Picking the more courageous choice meant I was more likely to succeed and enjoy the process more.

By adopting courage as a core principle, I was able to identify that repeated failure pattern in myself and fix it. Given the choice between two opportunities, I now pick the one that is more courageous. I also make these decisions more quickly and efficiently than I did before.

If you aren’t conscious of this, you are likely to make the same mistakes over and over again.

Example: My Core Values List

So how do you put together a list of personal values? I’ll give some examples of personal values from my own life to help you get started in figuring out your own.

Some of them may be helpful to you, but others certainly won’t. I think the core values that are most valuable to each of us come from our own personal experience, not from being taught and accepting someone else’s.

My hope is that by reading through my list, you will get a sense for how a list of core values could be helpful in making better decisions.

• Agency: to choose how I live and behave and help others do likewise; to be self-supportive and choose my own way of doing things.
• Self-Development: to keep growing, advancing, or improving in knowledge, skills, character, or life experience.
• Courage: to be courageous or brave; to persist in the face of fear, threat, or difficulty; to take risks for others.
• Impact: to exert myself into the universe in a way I believe is important. I work for what I want, not what others want from me.
• Soul in the Game: I believe it is an ethical concern that I put my money and time where my mouth is, that I have no divorce between what I preach and my lifestyle. I believe the highest form of ethics is to take on risk for others.
• Reciprocity: to create more value than I capture.

How I Use My Personal List of Values

My personal values are very practical for me and I use them in two main ways.

First, I read over them every week as part of my weekly review . During my review, I reflect on the past week and make plans for the next week. In between reflecting and planning, I read through my core values document.

Second, I read them whenever I am struggling to make a big decision like moving cities or changing careers. Typically, reading through my core values list makes it obvious to me what the right answer is.

Over time, I find that I am getting better at internalizing the values and they express themselves subconsciously with smaller decisions, as well.

What if more than one choice lines up with your core values?

Sometimes a decision can go either way and both still match up with your core values. I was deciding between two books I wanted to write, and the truth is that both of them matched up with my core values.

In that sense, the decision didn’t matter. I could choose to write either book and I would still be in alignment with what matters most to me.

The decision then became more of a strategic question: Which of these books will sell more copies? Which will be most beneficial to my career? Which will I most enjoy writing?

However, the strategy question only comes after the values one.

Two Ways to Discover Your Personal Values

Most of us have values that we have adopted from other pre-packaged sources, like a religion, culture, or legal system. There’s nothing wrong with adopting values from somewhere else and often the values from these sources have incorporated a huge amount of wisdom.

However, by adopting a value system without much thought, it’s easy to hold personal values that lead to a conflict between what you say you believe and the actions you take. I’m sure you’ve met someone who says they believe in the tenets of a particular religious or spiritual tradition, but then they behave counter to its teachings.

So how do you discover your own core values?

1. Having and reflecting on life experiences

The best way to find your values is often through making mistakes and violating them. Good judgment comes from experience and you usually get that experience by making bad judgments.

One of the values I recently added to my list was:

Impact : to exert myself into the universe in a way that I believe is important. I work for what I want, not what others want from me.

This may sound egotistical and you may disagree with it. That’s totally fine.

Over a period of two years, I noticed that when I worked on projects that other people told me I should work on, I wasn’t really excited to be working on them. This meant I did poor quality work, and the project ended up not being very good for my own career or for my customers.

However, when I worked on projects that I believed were really important, even when other people thought they weren’t the best idea, I worked incredibly hard and talked about them passionately, which inspired others to help me. These projects ended up being more successful and helping more people.

So for me, the counterintuitive truth was that by working for what I want and not for what others want, I did more to help other people, which is also one of my values.

2. Hearing someone else clearly express a deeply held belief of mine

The other way I discover my personal values is by hearing someone express a deeply held belief of mine that I did not have the words to articulate.

One of my values is that “I have soul in the game.”

This is a term inspired by a phrase used in The Black Swan that immediately resonated with me. The book explains that having “skin in the game” means you are responsible for the consequences of your actions. Entrepreneurs have skin in the game because if they make a decision and the company tanks, they bear the weight of those consequences.

Having soul in the game is going a step further: taking on risk for others. Think of a whistleblower who speaks out at the risk of destroying their own career.

I’d never had a clear way to put it into words until I read the book, but this resonated with me so much that I added it to my list of personal values.

How to Make Your First Core Values List in Less Than 15 Minutes

1. look through this list of examples of personal values and pick five that resonate with you..

The first time you put together a list of core values, it’s easiest to start from an existing list.

Over time, you can reflect and add or modify these based on your personal experiences, or if you read or hear something that you find resonates with you. Remember that there are no objectively “right” or “wrong” answers.

Look through this list of personal values and make a note of each one that resonates with you by writing it down. Write down at least 10.

If you’d like to download this list to print off or save, you can click here.

• Acceptance: to be open to and accepting of myself, others, life, etc.
• Adventure: to be adventurous; to actively seek, create, or explore novel or stimulating experiences
• Assertiveness: to respectfully stand up for my rights and request what I want
• Authenticity: to be authentic, genuine, and real; to be true to myself
• Beauty: to appreciate, create, nurture, or cultivate beauty in myself, others, the environment, etc.
• Caring: to be caring toward myself, others, the environment, etc.
• Challenge: to keep challenging myself to grow, learn, and improve
• Compassion: to act with kindness toward those who are suffering
• Conformity: to be respectful and obedient of rules and obligations
• Connection: to engage fully in whatever I am doing, and be fully present with others
• Contribution: to contribute, help, assist, or make a positive difference to myself or others
• Cooperation: to be cooperative and collaborative with others
• Courage: to be courageous or brave; to persist in the face of fear, threat, or difficulty
• Creativity: to be creative or innovative
• Curiosity: to be curious, open-minded, and interested; to explore and discover
• Encouragement: to encourage and reward behavior that I value in myself or others
• Equality: to treat others as equal to myself, and vice versa
• Excitement: to seek, create, and engage in activities that are exciting, stimulating, or thrilling
• Fairness: to be fair to myself or others
• Fitness: to maintain or improve my fitness; to look after my physical and mental health and well-being
• Flexibility: to adjust and adapt readily to changing circumstances
• Forgiveness: to be forgiving toward myself or others
• Freedom: to live freely; to choose how I live and behave, or help others do likewise
• Friendliness: to be friendly, companionable, or agreeable toward others
• Fun: to be fun-loving; to seek, create, and engage in fun-filled activities
• Generosity: to be generous, sharing, and giving, to myself or others
• Gratitude: to be grateful for and appreciative of the positive aspects of myself, others, and life
• Honesty: to be honest, truthful, and sincere with myself and others
• Humility: to be humble or modest; to let my achievements speak for themselves
• Humor: to see and appreciate the humorous side of life
• Independence: to be self-supportive, and choose my own way of doing things
• Industry: to be industrious, hard-working, and dedicated
• Intimacy: to open up, reveal, and share myself — emotionally or physically — in my close personal relationships
• Justice: to uphold justice and fairness
• Kindness: to be kind, compassionate, considerate, nurturing, or caring toward myself or others
• Love: to act lovingly or affectionately toward myself or others
• Mindfulness: to be conscious of, open to, and curious about my here-and-now experience
• Open-mindedness: to think things through, see things from others’ points of view, and weigh evidence fairly
• Order: to be orderly and organized
• Patience: to wait calmly for what I want
• Persistence: to continue resolutely, despite problems or difficulties
• Pleasure: to create and give pleasure to myself or others
• Power: to strongly influence or wield authority over others, e.g., taking charge, leading, organizing
• Reciprocity: to build relationships in which there is a fair balance of giving and taking
• Respect: to be respectful toward myself or others; to be polite, be considerate, and show positive regard
• Responsibility: to be responsible and accountable for my actions
• Romance: to be romantic; to display and express love or strong affection
• Safety: to secure, protect, or ensure safety of myself or others
• Self-awareness: to be aware of my own thoughts, feelings, and actions
• Self-care: to look after my health and well-being, and get my needs met
• Self-control: to act in accordance with my own ideals
• Self-development: to keep growing, advancing, or improving in knowledge, skills, character, or life experience.
• Sensuality: to create, explore, and enjoy experiences that stimulate the five senses
• Sexuality: to explore or express my sexuality
• Skillfulness: to continually practice and improve my skills, and apply myself fully when using them
• Spirituality: to connect with things bigger than myself
• Supportiveness: to be supportive, helpful, encouraging, and available to myself or others
• Trust: to be trustworthy; to be loyal, faithful, sincere, and reliable
• Insert your own value here. 1

Next, go through the ones you wrote down and list them from most important to least important.

2. Save the Top 5 values on your list someplace where you can look at them and update them.

I keep my values in an Evernote note where I can easily look at them and modify them.

Your values are always changing and you’re also getting a better idea of what you value. I used to value novelty a lot — new experiences and new people. For a period of my life, that really was a core value and I prioritized my life around it. In the last few years, though, I’ve come to value spending time getting to know the people already in my life more than meeting new people and seeing new places, so I took it off my list.

The terms on the list above are just a starting point and not an exhaustive list. You also want to try and pick terms that emotionally resonate with you. The phrase “soul in the game” probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but it means a lot to me. Whenever I hear something that really resonates with me, I will add it to my list.

3. Look at them regularly.

Now that you have a list of values, you want to put it to work. Pick a time when you can regularly review them. If you have a time in your week, month, or year where you regularly do any sort of planning, reviewing your core values is a good activity to tack on. Regularly looking over them keeps them fresh in your mind and lets you make decisions that align with your values.

I look at mine every Saturday morning, which is when I do my weekly review and planning .

If you’d like to download a worksheet with the full list, enter your email below.

Takeaways on Making a Core Values List

There was a study done in the 1990s by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of “ Flow ,” where different professionals were studied to see which ones were happy and productive and which were unhappy and unproductive. The most important factor was alignment with personal values.

The happiest, most productive profession was geneticists because all parties involved respected the best science. Even though pharmaceutical companies were injecting a lot of money into the field, geneticists believed doing the very best science on a day-to-day basis led to more benefits for the general public, the pharmaceutical companies, their universities, and themselves — the work they were doing was in alignment with their core values.

The least happy, and least productive profession was journalism. Most journalists had entered the field with high ideals about truth, making a difference, and the free press. But the decline of the family-run newspaper and rise of corporate media empires made journalism a profit center where all that mattered was sales, which meant good journalism was bad for business and was replaced by scare stories, exaggeration, and scandal. Their values did not align with their day-to-day work.

A follow-up study done by McGregor and Little in 1998 2 found that meaningfulness of individuals’ personal projects depended on how consistent they were with core aspects of self and identity — in other words, their core values.

The happiest and most productive people were taking daily actions in line with their core values.

This gives them a constant sense of motivation, because they see how the work they are doing today leads to a long-term vision that they find meaningful.

Your personal values are specific to you and a result of your own life experiences. You can discover and refine your values through life experience or encountering ideas that resonate with you.

Having a written list of your personal values will help you make better decisions.

Want a step-by-step guide to finding your personal values list for the first time?

Acknowledgment: Ray Dalio .

Last Updated on July 30, 2019 by Taylor Pearson

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• This list was originally sourced from https://thehappinesstrap.com/
• Mcgregor, Ian, and Brian R. Little. “ Personal projects, happiness, and meaning: On doing well and being yourself .” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74.2 (1998): 494-512. Web. 10 June 2017.
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Home / Essay Samples / Sociology / Personal Life / Uncovering My Values: A Journey to Self-Discovery

Uncovering My Values: A Journey to Self-Discovery

• Category: Life , Sociology
• Topic: Career Goals , Personal Growth and Development , Personal Life

Pages: 2 (1041 words)

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Personal Mission Statement

Personal values, expectations, responsibility, attitude, and approach.

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