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Our core values influence how we live our lives.
When we know our core values, making decisions becomes easier. We are also less likely to be swayed by other people’s opinions.
Everyone has their own set of personal core values. Whether you’re aware of them or not, your personal values shape your relationships, determine your choice of city to live in, and even come into play when you are looking for a place to eat.
Going against your core values leads to frustration, often resulting in destructive behavior. Thus, it is essential to know your core values so you can effectively handle various situations in your life and find peace within yourself.
Worksheets, quizzes, and other self-discovery tools for identifying core values can help determine what is most important to you.
Today, we’re sharing our collection of core values worksheets. Hopefully they can help you live life in accordance with what you truly believe.
What You Will Learn
- 1. Ask Why
- 2. Values Exercise
- 3. Virtus
- 4. Understand Your Values
- 5. Values Map
- 6. A Clue on What to Do
- 7. Digging Deeper
- 8. Values Clarification
- 9. Align Your Truth With Your Actions
- 10. Working With a Clarity Alchemist
- 11. The Minimalists Values Worksheet
- 12. Identify Your Core Values
- 13. Live Your Values Worksheet
- Final Thoughts on Identifying Your Core Values
1. Ask Why
Defining your life’s purpose brings clarity, motivates you, keeps you focused, and helps you live longer. Uncovering this purpose begins with asking the question, “Why?”
This worksheet helps you uncover your core values by prompting you to ask why they are important to you. You’re supposed to answer multiple times until you reach a point where your answer cannot be distilled down any further.
Then you’ve found your why.
2. Values Exercise
via Carnegie Mellon University
In this worksheet, you are provided a list of core values in order from A-Z. You choose all the core values you’re drawn to.
Then you put the values you’ve chosen into groups. The groupings must mean something and make sense to you.
After that, you choose a single word that resonates most with you from each group. These words are your core values.
3. Virtus
via Some Thoughts On Strategy, Leadership, And Corporate Culture
Similar to the sample above, this worksheet provides you with a list of core values.
Your task is to group the core values that belong together. There are five boxes where you can write down the values belonging to the same categories. Again, the groupings will depend on what makes sense to you.
From there, you can choose one value from each group. These will be your top five core values.
4. Understand Your Values
via Tomi Llama
If you’re not aware of what your core values are, there’s a good chance that you’re working against them.
As we mentioned earlier, this “unknowing” negatively impacts your life.
This worksheet helps you determine if you’re working with or against your core values. It uses the terms “above the line” for working in sync with a core value and “below the line” for working against it.
First, you need to identify what your core values are. Then, using the worksheet above, you need to determine how you use these values in an “above the line” way.
This worksheet also prompts you to identify scenarios where you could be using the core value in a way that negatively impacts you or others.
Finally, it has a column for your answer or proposal on how you can use your core value in a more “above the line” way.
5. Values Map
via The Daily PlanIt
Your core values are your guiding principles in life. They are the points on your life map that tell you how to navigate every experience.
This worksheet helps you develop a value statement by letting you identify different types of values that serve as your guiding principles.
It includes boxes you need to fill out with the following information:
Identifying these values can make it easier to create your personal value or mission statement.
6. A Clue on What to Do
via Vacay Vans
This worksheet provides step-by-step instructions for identifying your personal core values.
It has an extensive list of core values to choose from. Lisa, the worksheet creator, invites those who use the worksheet to add more core values if what they resonate with isn’t listed.
After choosing the words that resonate most with you, you are invited to group them in categories that make sense to you. The worksheet suggests using the following groupings:
You then select up to five words that resonate most with you from your curated list.
Finally, you’ll fill in a section of the worksheet where you can write down actionable sentences using each of your chosen core values.
7. Digging Deeper
via Camy Kennedy
Worksheets like this one are often used by companies to help their employees determine their core values by exploring different sources of influence.
For example, you are asked to name a person you admire and to list down the core values you think they hold.
Moreover, the worksheet encourages you to specify actionable steps that show how your core values can help overcome challenges that you might encounter.
8. Values Clarification
via Therapist Aid
Some people find it a bit of a challenge to determine their true personal core values. This worksheet may be able to help you discover what is truly important to you.
Here, you'll find a list of the most common values that are important to people.
In order to determine the ones that are most important to you, you're encouraged to choose 10 values from the list, ranking them from 1–10 (with 1 being the most important).
Blank spaces are provided for writing values that may not be on the list.
When you’re living in line with your core values, you’ll notice that events in your life run more smoothly. Decisions are made in greater confidence. Finally, there is a sense of anticipation about the results of decisions made in alignment with what you truly believe in.
9. Align Your Truth With Your Actions
It takes a different level of bravery to live an authentic life—a life in keeping with the things you truly believe in. This worksheet provides space for you to explore and determine what those values are.
The leftmost column has space for writing down the personal values that are important to you. There are enough blank boxes to list up to nine core values.
Meanwhile, the middle column is assigned to “actions aligned with values.” It prompts you to create specific action plans on how to live according to your core values.
Lastly, the rightmost column has space reserved for writing down practical situations where your chosen values can be demonstrated or applied.
10. Working With a Clarity Alchemist
via Anne Bolender
Anne Bolender, who describes herself as a clarity alchemist, created this worksheet to help people identify core values.
This is an exhaustive list and is arranged in alphabetical order. For this worksheet to help you determine your personal core values, you can choose up to 10 values that resonate the most with you.
From these values, you can then narrow down your choice to three or five that you feel express your innermost self or what you truly believe in.
11. The Minimalists Values Worksheet
via The Minimalists
Going through life not really knowing what your core values are is the same way as walking away from your intended destination. It causes you to lose time, waste resources, and be frustrated and miserable.
This worksheet from The Minimalists helps you identify different types of values that give you more sense of fulfillment in life.
12. Identify Your Core Values
This worksheet helps you identify the values that are of utmost importance to you through several writing prompts.
Meditate on the following in order to come up with the values that will make up your personal core values:
The worksheet comes with a beautiful quote from J. Loren Norris about the purpose of core values:
“Core values serve as a lighthouse when the fog of life seems to leave you wandering in circles; when you encounter that moment when every decision is a tough one and no choice seems to clearly be the better choice.”
13. Live Your Values Worksheet
Knowing your core values make it easier to set personal boundaries. It gives you the freedom to be a person who lives according to his or her own truth.
The worksheet above helps you identify the values that bring you closer to who you truly are. It provides a space to brainstorm ways in which to live out the values you’ve chosen.
Final Thoughts on Identifying Your Core Values
Identifying your core values by filling out a worksheet is just one way of developing self-awareness.
When you’re aware of what is truly important to you, you begin to align your life with these values. They will serve as your anchor, even in the most turbulent moments of life.
If you need a primer on what these core values are, you might want to check out this post featuring 100 examples of values to live by. If you're doing this with your family, here's a guide on how to find out your family core values.
Also, quizzes can be quite helpful when it comes to discovering your core values. Check out this article for a review of core value quizzes to help identify what’s important to you.
Then here are some great Find Your Why worksheets that you can also use to further narrow down your core values.
Finally, once you determine your core values, you can create your own life motto, a positive life message to guide you.
