Core Values: What Matters to You Most?

Imagine this:

You’re a twenty-something, working as a teacher and writer in a field you’ve loved since you were a kid. You are considered an official “master” in this field, and you’ve recently won an award as a journalist within it. You live in one of your favorite parts of Los Angeles with your girlfriend of a few years. The two of you were close friends before you fell for each other and started a committed relationship. Yet, you often find yourself discontent, like someone who has missed out on their potential. How can this be?

You have a good life, beautiful in a number of ways, but you realize: it’s a life built for someone else. Everything is in the way you look at it.

At the same time, you feel underpaid and underappreciated. Your health habits are sporadic at best, stress-eating at times, only occasionally exercising, and socially drinking most weekends and some weekdays. You’ve taken a number of days off work recently because you’ve felt too emotionally jarred from arguments with your girlfriend to function productively. Everytime a stranger is rude to you or someone cuts you off on the freeway, you feel a spark of frustration inside that can last for hours. Your main goal is to write fiction novels, yet ideas for stories have sat dormant for years in your Google Docs account, continuing to age without growth. 

A number of potential solutions may come to mind here: Eat healthier. Ask for a raise. Cut down on drinking. Resolve arguments or end a relationship that’s become unhealthy. These kinds of solutions can help, but they are treating the symptoms, not the root problem. 

The first step to solving a problem is to truly understand it. 

It’s common for people to prescribe a one-size-fits all path to happiness:

• Get a high-paying job in a field you like
• Enter a committed relationship
• Save money
• Buy a home
• Advance in your field
• Start a family

This kind of advice overlooks who we are as individuals. What fulfills us is actually deeply subjective. 

That’s why so often it’s easier to find joy in the little things instead of the big things. We choose the little things based on who we are and what we actually enjoy doing. 

Yet, we often choose the big things based on what we “should” do, according to generalized societal notions. 

This is also why all comparative measures fail to guide us to happiness. Think about it. Have you ever set a goal purely based on:

• Status
• Money
• An achievement generally-revered but not personally revered, or
• Outdoing another person?

Did you feel true joy when you got there? Or an unexpected emptiness?

I’ve won chess tournaments for thousands of dollars and have stood in the winners’ circle line, waiting to collect my check and felt nothing. The moment I’d been waiting for, and it’s been oddly empty. 

On the other hand, the individual chess games I’ve played where I truly brought out the best of myself, that perhaps won me a $100 best game prize if anything, mean the world to me, even as the years pass. 

So, how do we figure out what is fulfilling to us personally? 

The key is to figure out what truly matters to you personally, your core values, which are your most fundamental values and beliefs. Then, build your life around creating opportunities to express those values.

It’s simple really. We’re happier when we are able to live in a way that fulfills what truly matters most to us. 

So, how does one discover their core values?

The process to discovering your core values is likely very personal and unique to you. However, I have devised an exercise that may help below. 

If you do try it out, I’d love your feedback.

Exercise: How to Discover Your Core Values

Guidelines: 

1. If something comes to mind, go with it. Don’t judge or edit it away. We’re searching for those hidden truths.

2. Skip/leave three lines blank under each of your answers (you’ll use these later in the exercise).
3. The time period based questions are meant to help brainstorm. Feel free to skip the ones where nothing comes to mind or use an alternate time period that resonates more for you.

Step 1: Questions

Losing Track of Time

1. When was the last time you were so absorbed in what you were doing you lost track of time?

• …in the last 3 months?

• …in the last 6 months?

• …over the last year?

2. Under each answer in 1-2 lines (leave 1 of the 3 blank), what were you focused on in each experience?

Identity 

1. When was the last time you felt most like yourself? Consider different activities (hobbies, work & how you spend your free time).

• …in the last 3 months? 

• …in the last 6 months?

• …over the last year?

2. Under each answer in 1-2 lines (leave 1 of the 3 blank), what did you love about or identify with in these experiences?

Connection to Others

1. When did you last feel really connected to another person?

• …in the last 3 months?

• …in the last 6 months?

• …over the last year?

Step 2: Find Patterns.

1. For each of your answers in a different color pen if possible, write down a word or phrase that sums up what it meant to you on the last blank line.

• It’s ideal to use the words that come to mind for you. But, if needed, here’s a list of core values from the insightful blogger, James Clear: https://jamesclear.com/core-values

2. If there are similar ones, combine and simplify.

Step 3: Order your core values.

•  When fulfilled, which values make you feel most like yourself?
•  Which make you happy?

Step 4: Focus on your top 2

• Though you likely have 5 or more values that matter to you, choose two that if you had to eliminate all others, you can’t do without, the absolute essential. 

Step 5: Make them actionable

• Write a list of actions that fulfill each of your top 5 values. What’s the pattern? What are the most regularly doable & effective ways?

Step 6: How can you make these actions more present in your life?

• Look for small ways at first. If creative expression is one of your top values. Perhaps try working a weekly painting session into your schedule. 

Example: My Answers

Step 1: Questions

Losing Track of Time

1. When was the last time you were so absorbed in what you were doing you lost track of time?

• a. …recently? Rereading this blog post and realizing that it’s ready to be posted. More importantly, realizing that I’m ready to post it. I’m ready to start opening up about my personal life in this public and meaningful way. 

• b. …in the last 3 months? Writing sessions where I’ve felt inspired and reached a state of flow

2. Under each answer in 1-2 lines (leave 1 of the 3 blank), what were you focused on in each experience?

• a. Creative self-expression + How my ideas could be helpful to others

• b. Creative expression + the meaning my writing could hold for readers

Identity 

1. When was the last time you felt most like yourself? Consider different activities and events (hobbies, work & how you spend your free time).

• c. …recently? Listening to a friend’s problems over the phone, relating, empathizing, and being there for her

• d. ..in the last 3 months? Spontaneously getting my hair cut to a shorter, more androgynous haircut that I’ve wanted for a long time but have always been afraid to try. It feels so much more like me than long hair ever did. 

• e. …in the last 6 months? Sending a difficult to write email to a new friend where i opened up about my social anxiety before our first phone chat

2. Under each answer in 1-2 lines (leave 1 of the 3 blank), what did you love about or identify with in these experiences?

• c. Being able to be supportive of a close friend + openness of our relationship, that we can share so much without judgment

• d. Facing a fear + self-expression

• e. Facing a fear + opening up about who I really am and the experiences that affect me, instead of trying to be someone I’m not

Connection to Others

1. When did you last feel really connected to another person?

• f. …recently? Phone conversation mentioned above

• g. …in the last 3 months? Sharing about my own problems in phone chats with friends

• h. …in the last 6 months? Watercolor painting with a friend

2. Under each answer in 1-2 lines (leave 1 of the 3 blank), what about these experiences made you feel connected?

• f. See answer c. above

• g. Opening up and feeling empathy and support

• h. Creative expression together, being able to share the experience & sharing our imperfect artwork with each other + joking around and laughing together

Step 2: Find Patterns.

1. For each of your answers, write down a word or phrase that sums up what it meant to you on the last blank line.

Losing Track of Time

• a. Opening up/Authenticity
• b. Creative Expression 

Identity 

• c. Being supportive/Empathy
• d. Self-Expression & Facing a fear
• e. Opening up & Facing a fear

Connection to Others

• f. Being supportive/Empathy
• g. Opening up & Feeling Supported
• h. Creative expression & Accepting Imperfection

2. If there are similar ones, combine and simplify.

1. Being supportive & feeling supported = Empathy
2. Opening up, Accepting Imperfection & Self-Expression = Authenticity
3. Creative Expression
4. Facing fears

Step 3: Order your core values.

•  When fulfilled, which values make you feel most like yourself?
•  Which make you happy?

1. Authenticity
2. Empathy
3. Creative Expression (Debatably this is tied with empathy for #2)
4. Facing fears

Step 4: Focus on your top 3

• Though you likely have 5 or more values that matter to you, choose three that if you had to eliminate all others, you can’t do without, the absolute essential. 

1. Authenticity
2. Empathy
3. Creative Expression

Facing fears seems to be a tool I like to use for authenticity. 

Step 5: Make them actionable

• Write a list of actions that fulfill each of your top 5 values. What’s the pattern? What are the most regularly doable & effective ways?

1. Authenticity: 
   • Writing openly in my blog
   • opening up to friends even when it’s challenging

2. Empathy: 
   • Being there for those I’m close to
   • Hopefully being able to use my writing to help others, offering ideas & experiences to relate to

3. Creative Expression: 
   • Writing fiction
   • Visual arts like drawing and painting

Step 6: How can you make these actions more present in your life?

I’ve put a lot of effort into making my core values more present in my life, especially through writing every morning, working on writing that I hope will be helpful to others, and pushing myself towards a more empathetic perspective of others, even when it’s challenging. 

Because of this, my life is a lot more suited for me personally and vastly more fulfilling than it was several years ago when I first discovered the need to reassess my life based on my core values.