How to find your core values
A six-step exercise to name the two or three values behind your best decisions, then turn them into habits you can keep.
Start the exerciseThe short answer
Your core values are the few beliefs you use to make hard decisions. To find them, look at the moments you felt most like yourself and the moments you felt most frustrated, name the value present in each, narrow the list to two or three, and write down how each one shows up in your week.
The core values exercise
Give yourself a quiet hour and a notebook or journal.
Recall your peak moments
Write down three to five times you felt proud, alive, or fully yourself, at work or outside it. For each one, ask what was present. Were you learning, leading, creating, or helping someone? The value is usually the thing you would have refused to give up in that moment.
Look at what drains or angers you
Frustration often points to a value being stepped on. If micromanagement makes you furious, autonomy or trust may matter to you. List two or three of these moments and name the value underneath each one.
Circle candidates from a list
Scan a list of values, like the short one below, and circle every word that feels true. Add your own words from the first two steps. Ten to twenty candidates is a normal place to land.
Narrow to two or three
Group words that overlap and keep the one that says it best. Brené Brown's values exercise asks you to choose two and test each with three questions. Does this define me? Is this who I am at my best? Is this a filter I use to make hard decisions?
Source: Living Into Our Values exercise
Define the behaviors
A value is only useful when you can see it in action. For each one, write one or two behaviors that support it and one or two slippery behaviors that pull you outside it. Then write down a time you were fully living into it.
Source: Living Into Our Values exercise
Build a system to keep them
Values fade under a busy calendar. Pick one small, repeatable check, such as a weekly journal prompt asking where you lived your values and where you drifted, or a rule like "I decline meetings that conflict with my top value." Building life systems around your values is the focus of the LivingOS community.
Example core values to start from
Circle what fits, cross out what doesn't, and add your own words.
- Achievement
- Adventure
- Authenticity
- Balance
- Collaboration
- Commitment
- Community
- Compassion
- Competence
- Confidence
- Connection
- Contentment
- Creativity
- Dignity
- Efficiency
- Excellence
- Joy
- Learning
- Legacy
- Making a difference
- Nature
- Optimism
- Perseverance
- Simplicity
- Spirituality
- Success
- Teamwork
- Trust
- Truth
- Vision
- Vulnerability
- Wellbeing
- Wholeheartedness
- Wisdom
Adapted from the longer list in Brené Brown's Living Into Our Values exercise.
Why LivingOS cares about values
LivingOS founder Charlene Wang spent years as a startup tech advisor until severe burnout forced her to pause. Over the next four years she worked with therapists and coaches to redesign the systems for her life. Now she helps compassionate leaders do the same.
“After a series of small but mighty experiments, I learned to transform my hauntings and built systems to achieve my own dreams.”
Charlene Wang, founder of LivingOS, Fall 2021
Common questions about core values
Fewer than you think. Brené Brown's values exercise asks for two, because a long list stops working as a filter for decisions. Many people land on two or three.
Want help living your values?
Explore. Experiment. Enjoy work and life. That's what Charlene Wang writes about on the LivingOS Substack.