What are personal core values? Why are values important? Discover yours.

What are personal core values? And why are values important to have and to understand?

Our personal core values are the very core of our identity. They highlight what we stand for, they guide our behaviour, the decisions we make and the goals we set.

When we live in line with our personal core values consistently, we experience fulfilment. When we don’t, we are likely to feel out of sorts, despondent, demotivated.

When we don’t know our personal core values, we’re likely to violate them every day. This creates bad feelings that we can’t quite put our finger on. And these, in turn, often trigger destructive habits and regressive behaviour.

Yet many of us go through much of our life without ever taking the time to connect with our personal core values. Instead, we assume those placed upon us by society, by family, peers or the media.

If you’ve ever found yourself disgusted by something that everybody else found funny, or uncomfortable carrying out some tasks or working for a client that felt wrong to you, but others were perfectly fine with – then that was your values giving you a sign.

Our personal core values can also explain why we are particularly drawn to some people who we believe share similar values, whilst we don’t warm well to others who we don’t believe do.

Why are personal core values important?

• Clarity of Direction: Understanding our personal core values gives us greater clarity over the direction we will find most rewarding for our lives.
  
• Decision making: Personal core values help us make better informed decisions in the short and long term.
  
• Stress reduction: Not only will our core personal values help reduce decision fatigue, they also enable us to say ’No’ better, reducing the amount on our plates. 
  
• Consistency: They enable more consistent behaviour in alignment with our ideals.
  
• Fulfilment: That internal consistency and sense of direction increases our sense of fulfilment and contentment.
  
• Personal Growth: Our personal core values can inform which learning and development areas we will find most engaging.
  
• Code for life: And they give us a playbook by which to live every day, particularly helpful in times of conflict and confusion.

All in all, awareness of our personal core values is like having a personal North Star guiding us every day in the direction that is most appropriate and important for us.

Personal core values as a code for life

Identifying my personal core values was one of most rewarding exercises I have ever undertaken, and I wish I had done it much earlier.

Not that I previously had no idea what was important to me. If asked, I could have reeled off a list of words that I valued in myself and others. But ask me one day, and that list may have differed from the list I would have given you a few weeks earlier. Possibly influenced by some fleeting incident or another.

What I found to be most rewarding from the act of defining my core personal values, was the insight that came from thinking more deeply about, not just what values resonate most strongly, but really examining why. As well as placing them into a prioritised order and making hard choices about why I valued one higher than another.

It’s these steps that enable us to create a kind of code for life. And a liberating and easy filter by which we can review every opportunity, activity and request on our time.

In my Free Discover Your Core Personal Values Workbook I walk you through the exact steps I took to discover the Core Personal Values that have become my playbook for life ever since. It includes a list of 132 sample Values that can help inform your own. 

It’s FREE to download and easy to work through with just a pen and paper and some clear thinking space. 

My Personal Core Values

After following the steps in the workbook, I know that my personal core values are:

Health: A healthy body, mind and spirit underpins everything else in life. 

Balance: Maintain boundaries to ensure I pursue no activities to unhealthy extremes.

Contribution: I seek to always utilise my talents for the greater good.

Quality: If a job is worth doing, it should not be rushed or half-hearted. Give others the respect of a job well done.

Growth: Consistent challenge keeps us physically, mentally & spiritually strong. And enables us to better the quality of our contributions. In that order.

You might notice how some values underpin others. 

Really taking the time to think through your core personal values in this way, you’ll likely notice inter-relationships between them.

You might also encounter some surprising realisations that one value you thought was important to you actually conflicts with something even more important. You might need to shed or change your perspective on something that no longer serves the person you have become.

In fact, I’d recommend reviewing your personal core values at least once per year. Or at least any time you have experienced a major life change.

For example, having kids, going through a divorce, or suffering from a period of poor health are all examples of life milestones that are likely to cause a shift in how you priorities your personal core values. 

Why have personal core values?

Knowing my core personal values helps me in everyday situations, beginning with my morning routine. 

Health is critical for me, so drinking water, vitamins and exercise are the very first things I do every day. With no exceptions.

I’ll then plan my day to ensure a good balance of activities – the act of planning on paper helps set the boundaries to ensure I maintain that balance.

Contribution and growth inform the types of projects, both professional and personal I will take on, whilst quality sets a standard for everything I do. 

After discovering your personal core values, they can inform your life choices on a regular basis. For instance: 

• The goals you set yourself
• The projects you take on
• Your weekly plan
• Your daily schedule
• How you spend your evenings, weekends and holidays

As such, I encourage you to place them somewhere you’ll see them regularly, for example:

• Your mobile phone wallpaper
• On your computer desktop
• By your bathroom mirror
• In your day planner / journal

Ready to define your personal core values?

You can identify your core values with little more than some good questions and time to reflect.

In my FREE IDENTIFY YOUR PERSONAL CORE VALUES workbook I walk you through the exact process, which you can complete in roughly an hour.
The workbook includes 132 sample Values to choose or take inspiration from.

To further get you in the mood, here are the famous Personal Core Values of former US President Benjamin Franklin: 

• Temperance: Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
  
• Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
  
• Order: Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
  
• Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
  
• Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
  
• Industry: Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
  
• Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
  
• Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
  
• Moderation: Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
  
• Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.
  
• Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
  
• Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
  
  Maybe these strike a chord with you too?