Our values are essentially what is important to us in life. They sit in the background, with our beliefs, and they help us to do the right thing.

Knowing our values can help us ensure we’re following the right path for us. It’s so easy to forget our values, or let other people’s values blur our own, so checking in on our values is important.

Getting to know your values

Here’s a list of values. It’s not all the values, it’s just some. You can use this list to identify which values resonate with you. (There’s an activity below.)

• Authenticity
• Achievement
• Adventure
• Altruism
• Authority
• Autonomy
• Beauty
• Boldness
• Compassion
• Challenge
• Community
• Competency
• Contribution
• Creativity
• Curiosity
• Determination
• Fairness
• Faith
• Friendships
• Fun
• Growth
• Happiness
• Honesty
• Humor
• Influence
• Justice
• Kindness
• Knowledge
• Leadership
• Learning
• Love
• Loyalty
• Mindfulness
• Openness
• Optimism
• Peace
• Pleasure
• Popularity
• Professionalism
• Recognition
• Religion
• Reputation
• Respect
• Responsibility
• Security
• Self-Respect
• Service
• Spirituality
• Stability
• Success
• Status
• Trustworthiness
• Wealth
• Wisdom

Try this:

• read through the values and write down all the ones that you feel connected to
• Once you have your list, identify your top twenty
• Then, work down to your top ten
• Then your top seven
• And, if you can, bring it all the way down to your top five.

Working with you values

Once you have your top values, you can work our what living to your values would look, sound and feel like. Try completing these statements for each of your values:

• If I were living this value I would be… (doing/saying/being)
• If I was being true to this value it would feel like…
• If I embodied this value, it would make other people…

Checking in on your values

Values can change. And as I mentioned earlier, they can be forgotten, so to stay true to your values, and maximise your changes of staying on the right path, check in a couple of times a year. Good luck!