Identity
Values exercises have a particular failure mode: they produce a list of admirable qualities — honesty, kindness, growth, integrity — that represent not what you actually live by, but what you believe you should live by.
These lists feel meaningful. They can be written on cards and framed on walls. But they rarely produce genuine self-knowledge, because they are drawn from aspiration rather than from honest observation of how you actually make choices.
This guide is about finding the real ones.
Most values exercises ask you to choose from a list of values, rank them, and declare the top five. The problem: this process is entirely cognitive. You select what sounds right, what feels right to aspire to, what the values you have been raised to admire look like on a list.
But your real values are not what you aspire to. They are what you actually prioritise when things are difficult — when you have to choose between two things you want, or when being true to one principle means violating another.
The only way to identify real values is to look at real choices.
Think of five to ten moments in your life when you felt genuinely proud — not proud because you received external recognition, but privately satisfied, deeply right about a choice or an action.
Write down what was happening in each moment. What specifically made you proud? What principle were you honouring?
These moments are direct evidence of your values.
Think of five to ten times when you felt genuinely angry — not petty irritation, but the deep, clean anger of a value being violated.
What was happening? What principle was being disrespected?
The things that produce genuine anger when they are violated are reliably your values.
Values work is transformative — and can bring up real clarity about the gaps between how you're living and what you actually care about. Coaching can help you navigate that. Explore Coaching →
Think about the choices you are most proud of — the ones that cost something (time, money, comfort, approval) but that you would make again without hesitation.
What made them worth the cost? What principle were you honouring?
The things you argue about most persistently, the situations that reliably produce conflict in your relationships — these are usually sites where your values are in direct conflict with the values or behaviour of others.
What are you defending in these conflicts? That is a value.
After completing steps one through four, look at what appears repeatedly across the different sources. The principles that show up consistently — in what makes you proud, what angers you, what you defend in conflict, what you sacrifice for — are your actual core values.
They are not:
They are:
Once you have identified your actual core values, they become a decision-making tool.
Before any significant decision: Does this choice honour or violate my values?
When you feel persistent dissatisfaction: Which of my values is not being met in this situation?
Core values, identified honestly, produce a compass. Not a perfect one — values sometimes conflict with each other, and life frequently requires navigating that tension. But an honest one: a true-north that reflects who you actually are rather than who you have been told to be.
If this reflection is opening something up, 1:1 coaching can help you go deeper with clarity and real support. Explore Coaching →
If you'd rather begin in your own time, The Good Girl Delusion was written for exactly this work. Read The Good Girl Delusion →
Related: The Complete Self-Awareness Guide · How to Know Yourself Better
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