How to Discover Your Core Values
By Michael Miello, Ph.D.
Introduction to Values
Many people feel as though they are in search of a way to add purpose and meaning to their lives—a compass that will help them find direction for their days. Perhaps this takes the form of a restless sense that we could be doing more with our lives, or maybe it’s a sense that we are not the person we were meant to be. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to discover a definitive plan prepared for us that told us who we were meant to be and the kind of life we were destined for? But, for better or worse, there does not seem to be any definitive “purpose” built into life that we can uncover and verify objectively. In other words, no one can tell you the way that you must live. Rather, it seems that it is entirely up to us to decide how we can live purposefully. That, at first glance, might be disappointing to some, in reality this is wonderful news. It means that we get have a say in what our ideal life is.
If it is up to us to decide how to live with meaning and purpose, what are we to base that decision on? If the answer is not “out there” it would seem to have to come from within ourselves. This might not seem helpful. There’s a lot going on inside of ourselves: Thoughts, emotions, urges, obsessions, whims, daydreams, resentments, desires, boredom, excitement…indigestion. How are we to know what to base something as important as our source of meaning and purpose on? One clarifying thought is that it should be something of our choosing. We do not always choose what thoughts pop into our minds, and we do not choose what feelings swell in our chests. But if we do not choose these things, are they really “us”? Maybe there is something more essential in our minds that we can differentiate from the happenstance and accident that can otherwise distract us.
Maybe there is a core to our identity that is not made up of ephemeral thoughts or fleeting emotions. This core can be seen to be working in our decision making—in what we do when we are being most aware and intentional. Our innermost self is the self that sets rational goals and makes clear choices. If we carefully, introspectively, study how we have made important decisions a pattern starts to immerge. We will find that we, in most cases, have not behaved randomly or thoughtlessly. No—when it was really important, we were probably steering our life according to some set of personal principles. I will, from here on out, refer to these personal principles as Values.
Values Defined
Values are certain qualities that a person chooses to incorporate into the way they live their life because they believe that it is either morally preferable for one to do so, or because they believe that doing so will bring about a beneficial circumstance. In other words, values describe how you want to live and how you think it best to live.
An example of a value is Honesty. Do you consider honesty to be important in the way you live your life? If you do, then honesty is one of your values. There are a few other things that we can say about Values in general. Here I am drawing on useful discussions of Values I have been exposed to through ACT Psychology and from Stoic Philosophy.
Values are not goals. Unlike a goal, a value cannot be accomplished. You are never going to be done being trustworthy. You never get to cross values off your to-do list.
Your behavior is not always in line with your values. Quite often you will fail to live up to your own Values. This may lead to an experience of remorse or guilt.
When you fail to live up to one of your Values, it does not destroy the fact that you hold the Value. It does not mean that you cannot continue to try to live according to that Value in the very next moment.
Living according to your values is always under your control. You cannot control many things about your life (you cannot control, for example, whether you get that promotion, or whether you succumb to illness). But because Values describe how you are trying to live, you can always continue to try to live according to them.
Your values may often conflict with each other. Life will (on an almost daily basis) present you with situations where two or more of your values will come into conflict.
We can assume that people have more than one value. There are probably a set of important values, that can be applied to the many diverse situations we experience. We will refer to this set as their “Core Values.” How many Core Values a person might have is an open question.
Sorting Tasks.
One method used to identify values is a card sorting task. For example, W.R. Miller, J. C’de Baca, D.B. Matthews, and P.L. Wilbourne (2001) created a Values Card Sort task. This task requires participants to go through a stack of cards that have the names of common values on them and sort them into piles of values that are not important, important, and very important. This method can be time-consuming as it often requires going through the eighty-three card deck numerous times to get down to the individual’s Core Values. The Values Card sorting task can be found online at: http://www.motivationalinterviewing.org/sites/default/files/valuescardsort_0.pdf
However, before you start cutting out your own value cards, I recommend trying the V-25 method below.
The V-25 Method
Complete the V25 Questionnaire below to get your free Core Values report!
I have prepared a list of values I am calling V-25. This list is based on the Values Card Sort task created by W.R. Miller, J. C’de Baca, D.B. Matthews, and P.L. Wilbourne (2001). However, I have reduced the number of values by combining similar or overlapping concepts. To this I added a few values to ensure that the list was compatible with systems of philosophical thought (in particular that of the Stoic philosophers that modern Cognitive Behavioral Therapy drew inspiration from).
By reducing the overall number of values in the list, it became possible to present each value with a more detailed definition. I have also included three alternate names that were seen as being very similar but not identical (often the alternate names are the values that I have removed from the 83-card list due to redundancy).
Grouping of Values
For convenience I am presenting the list of values in three groups: Concerns, Means, and Ends. Concerns Valuespertain to what group of people you are most concerned about. Means Values include the methods, tools, or mental faculties that a person might go about trying to bring about their goals or solving problems. Ends Values are the type of situation that a person would like to bring about through his or her efforts. In other words: Who do you care about? How do you want to live? What would you like to bring about?
What follows is the V-25 method for identifying your Core Values. By completing this contemplative exercise you will be choosing up to six Core Values: one Concern Value, four Means Values, and one Ends Value. By submitting this form you will be assisting me in developing this tool and promote values-based living. I hope in the coming weeks to create a system that will be able to generate, based on your responses, a personalized manual for living according to your unique values. This will include more detailed descriptions of the values you have chosen, goals frequently set by people with these values, challenges that are unique to people with your values, and possible sources of values conflicts. Keep in mind that this this not a measure of mental health or even of personality. Values are as much about who you want to become as they are about who you are.
V25 Values Report
For a limited time I am making the V25 report available for free for people who submit the V25 questionnaire. You will receive your report via email along with a brief manual on how to understand it. This individualized feedback sheet includes your Core Values with brief definitions, possible sources of fulfillment to you (Based on Robert Emmons’s WIST model), potentials sources of conflict within the values you have chosen, and some theoretical concepts (three Values dimensions and a Values Archetype).