5-7 words.
That is the only thing standing between you and your happiest, most fulfilled, most successful life.
At least, that’s what they want you to think.
What are those 5-7 words you ask?
Your core values.
The principles, priorities and beliefs that guide how you live your life.
Let me be completely honest with you.
I’ve crafted my vision and mission, audited my life, and set my goals many times before. But until this week, I had never clearly defined my values.
If I asked you right now “what are your core values?”
How would you respond?
Could you list them off the top of your head?
Would you pull out your journal or that note on your phone?
Or would you ask for 5 minutes and scrape together an impromptu list?
Do Core Values Actually Matter?
Most of us have some idea of our values.
We know what we like, and what makes us angry. We know we want to be “good people” and “reach our full potential”. We’ve all looked at a list of words and picked out the ones that “feel right” (yes, I’m calling myself out here).
But I think that far too few of us could voice our values with confidence, let alone say that we live by them.
The fact that I have never dedicated two hours of my life to reflect and list out my values with complete conviction doesn’t feel like it has any major consequences, especially in the short term.
But in the long term, it changes the way our entire life plays out.
Only now, in the midst of an avalanche of important life decisions, have I come to realise this.
How do you decide which city to live in…
Which career path to take…
Which country to travel to…
Or whether your partner is the one to settle down with…
And feel satisfied with that decision…
If you have no idea what you truly value?
Your values are your customised guide to create a meaningful life. To wake up each morning with a sense of purpose, to close your eyes each night feeling like your actions mattered.
This can be scary to come to terms with, especially if you’ve gone 20, 30, even 40+ years living without clear values. But no matter what stage of life you’re at., I can tell you this:
The moment you are able to take a piece of paper, write down your values, and define exactly what they mean to you…
You will gain an entirely new outlook on life.
On your decisions.
Your relationships.
Your mindset.
Your actions.
Your goals.
Everything.
The Six-Step Value Setting System
So, the obvious next question is: “How do I work out what my values are?”
At 6am on Tuesday morning (a public holiday in Melbourne), making the 35-minute drive to my favourite beach, I decided it was time to find out.
Five hours later, I was sitting at home with a list of six clearly defined core values, and a strange sense of inner peace and confidence unlike anything I’ve experienced before.
This is the exact system that I went through so you can take a shortcut to the same outcome.
I’ve also shared my own core values and definitions, plus additional resources that I found extremely helpful in process.
1. Reflect on your life
The main issue with picking your values from a list of words is that we’re inherently biased.
Your brain will always subconsciously look for the ‘best’ values. The ones that position you as most desirable. That give you the best chance of conventional ‘success’.
This is a form of success that you want to stay far, far away from - the success that will have you reaching the top of the mountain, only to find you climbed the wrong one.
To uncover what you truly value, not what you wish you valued or think you should value, reflect on two areas of your life:
- Your Peak Moments: Think about times when you felt truly proud or fulfilled. What values were at play? These often align with your core beliefs.
- Your Most Challenging Times: Reflect on your struggles and moments of adversity. What did you rely on or stay true to in these situations? Core values often reveal themselves when you’re tested.
When I reflect on the lowest points in my life, the common theme was a lack of choice. Studying for a degree I didn’t want, working at a job I had no autonomy in, feeling like I didn’t have the power to influence the way my life was playing out.
A stark contrast to my feelings of freedom and intentionality I felt in my peak moments.
It’s no surprise then, that one of my core values is autonomy.
2. Look to others for inspiration
This is all identifying how you aspire to live. Most people thing that values have to represent exactly who you are right now. But they can also represent who you want to become.
One of my core values is curiosity. I strive to be open-minded and seek out new knowledge and perspectives.
But I can struggle to balance my love of routine with pursuing new experiences and explore the unknown.
By setting curiosity as a core value, I can remind myself of the type of person I aspire to be, and take action to reinforce that identity.
To find values you want to embody, it can be helpful to seek inspiration. There’s two groups of people you can look to:
- People you admire: What specifically draws you to the people you look up to most? What traits do they have? How do they live? These qualities often point toward values that matter to you.
- The people you are jealous of: Jealousy is an extremely complex emotion, but it is one of the best clues to work out what you really want in life.
Author's Note - an extra tip for a happier life: jealously is natural, but it doesn't have to be negative. Try to shift your jealousy into admiration. Remember, our world is so abundant. There is more than enough success, money and resources for you and them.
When I’ve found myself experiencing jealousy, I work to remind myself that someone else's success doesn’t hinder mine, and change my mindset to thank that person for showing me that what I want is possible.
3. List and prioritise
Now that you’ve reflected, it’s time to list some potential values.
Use inspiration (like this list) if needed, but start by writing down anything that resonates, even if it’s a long list (mine started with 15 values).
The key here is not to overthink it. Some words will seem to pull you towards them. Others you’ll completely ignore. Trust these instincts.
Once you have your list of potentials, narrow it down to around 5 values:
- Look for patterns: Are there certain qualities or principles that consistently appear?
- Reflect back on your responses from steps 1 and 2: Do any values stand out as more impactful than others?
- Test each value for authenticity: Ask yourself if it feels genuinely aligned with who you are, or if it’s influenced by external expectations or pressures. Core values should feel true to you, not forced by others.
Don’t rush this process. It could take 15 minutes or days. Give yourself time to let your subconscious mind work through them if needed.
4. Define your values
This is the one step I missed for years.
Selecting a list of values and copying their definitions from the Oxford Dictionary is easy.
But simply listing values doesn’t give them life. What makes a value meaningful is your personal definition of it.
For example, you might say you value “freedom,” but what does freedom actually mean to you?
How does it feel?
How do you know you’re living with freedom?
This is how you take a generic, surface level value and turn it into your own. How you understand why it’s so important to you.
Here’s the best thing about this step: you are no longer limited to predefined words or typical values.
My sixth value, ‘courageous ambition’, didn’t come from the words courage or ambition. It came from my own definition perfectly expressing something that resonated deep in my soul:
To be brace enough to decide, focused enough to commit, resilient enough to persist and open-minded enough to evolve with new information.
How you define your values is much more significant than your values themselves.
So remove all limitations with this process, and focus on how you want your values to manifest in your life.
5. Live your values
There are two powerful ways I’ve started using my values:
1. Lifestyle design
Big decisions feel a lot less daunting when you have overarching values to guide you.
Ask yourself, what specific:
- Goals
- Habits
- Lifestyle
- Locations
- Relationships
- Career choices
Will help you live in alignment with your values?
2. Decision making
Your values are tool to ground you in every single one of those 70,000 small decisions you make each day.
When it’s 5.30am and you’re deciding whether to hit the snooze button or get up and workout, look to your values.
When you’re out with friends on a Friday night deciding whether to drink or stay sober, look to your values.
When you’re on the edge of exploding at your colleague out of frustration, look to your values.
There’s never an inherent right or wrong answer in situations like these. But your values allows you to identify the right answer for you in that moment.
6. Reflect and reassess
Once you start living your values, you’ll see how they feel in practice.
Over time, you might find that some values shift or deepen.
You might need to redefine some of your values.
You may even need to change them if you find something isn’t as aligned as you thought.
Remember, your values are never set in stone.
My plan is to revisit my list as part of my weekly review - to both remind myself of my values, and to do a sense check that they are still my top values.
My List of Values
1. Autonomy: The ability to shape my own life through my actions and make intentional, unconstrained choices about how I live and behave, while empowering others to do the same.
2. Selfless development: To continuously improve myself and learn how to operate more effectively, while openly sharing what I learn with others. Inspired by Chris Williamson.
Author's note: With spending so much time on my new business Elevise recently, I've found myself lacking a sense of purpose for writing my newsletters and posting on socials. Acknowledging selfless development as a core value and realising how important it is to me is actually what prompted me to return to writing this newsletter.
3. Curiosity: To approach life with an open mind, actively seeking new knowledge, experiences and perspectives that deepen my understand of people and the world and allow me to experience life fully.
4. Self-care: To prioritise my physical and mental well-being so I can be fully present for others and show up as my best self.
5. Reciprocity: To create more value than I capture by giving freely and acting without expectation of return. Inspired by Taylor Pearson.
6. Courageous Ambition: To be brace enough to decide, focused enough to commit, resilient enough to persist and open-minded enough to evolve with new information.
Do any of our values match? Or are yours completely different? Reply to this email with your list of values - I’d love to hear them!
Additional Resources
Resource 1: Chat GPT
How did I decide on ‘autonomy’ as my biggest value, rather than ‘freedom’ or ‘agency’? I asked ChatGPT which one matched my definition best.
How did I turn my brain dump of everything that I truly valued into clear definitions that still resonated with me? I used ChatGPT to guide me.
Where did I look for ideas for my lifestyle design decisions? I gave my values to ChatGPT and asked it to define my perfect life, outlining each of the areas that I listed under lifestyle design.
Remember, ChatGPT is just for inspiration and support, but it goes a long way in helping to find the right ways to express your values, and start considering how to live them.
Resource 2: Modern Wisdom Podcast by Chris Williamson
Episode #199 - Taylor Pearson - Discover Your Life’s Core Values & Operating Principles
This is an episode from back in 2020, but it gives one of the best introductions to both the overall concept of core values, and the nuance behind creating your own.
Taylor Pearson’s blog post, How to Discover Your Core Values List (and Use Them to Make Better Decisions) is another great resource if you want to read more after this.
(But remember, don’t use reading to procrastinate from doing the work!)
Resource 3: Additional Podcasts on Values, Happiness and Meaning
Modern Wisdom Podcast by Chris Williamson (if you can’t tell I’m on a bit of a Modern Wisdom kick at the moment). I've found these particularly thought provoking as a 'high performer' who can get carried away with my ambitions:
The Imperfects:
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Let me know if this resonates with you, or if you’re starting to explore your own values. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Here's to another week becoming the best version of you.
Tayla
Looking for more resources?
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