Core Values: List, Examples, and Exercises

Are you struggling to find your core values? A good place to start is to better understand what values are. Then you can begin to explore which ones resonate most with you. So, in this article, we’ll help you explore your values and do some exercises to better understand how these values operate in your life.

Before we get started, we wanted to let you know about our well-being quiz. You can take the quiz to get your free personalized report.

​Or, if you’re a well-being entrepreneur or coach, download our Wellness Business Growth eBook to get expert tips, tools, and resources to grow your wellness business fast.​​

A core value can be defined as “an enduring belief upon which a person acts”. Values have a cognitive component in that they involve thoughts about preferable ways to be, live, or act. Values also have an emotional component because we feel positively or negatively about them (they resonate with us or they don’t). And, values have a behavioral component in that values often (but not always) drive our behavior (Limthanakom, Lauffer, Mujtaba, & Murphy Jr, 2008).

Core values vs. beliefs
​Values are similar to attitudes and beliefs in that they have these cognitive, emotional, and behavioral parts. But, researchers suggest that values are more enduring and long-lasting than either beliefs or attitudes (Limthanakom, Lauffer, Mujtaba, & Murphy Jr, 2008). We may change our beliefs about a particular topic (like a political party), but it’s unlikely that the values driving that shift changed. For example, let’s say we value kindness. We might believe one politician lives that value at one time and another politician lives that value at another time. We shift our belief (that one political party is better than the other), but we don’t shift our values.

Different types of core values
There are thought to be two different types of core values: instrumental values and terminal values. Instrumental values are about desirable ways to act or behave (e.g., honest, responsible, loving). Terminal values are about desirable end states (e.g., health, freedom, family security; Gibson, Greenwood, & Murphy Jr, 2009). It seems that each of us varies somewhat in the extent to which we have instrumental and terminal values. That is, some of us may prefer one type of value over the other (Allen, Ng, & Wilson, 2002). But we all have both of these types of values that guide our lives to some extent.

Values and actions are tightly linked—whatever we value and believe influences how we act. Perhaps this is because we humans really don’t like inconsistency. So we strive not to act in ways that go against our values.

In one series of studies, researchers showed how subtly shifting our values shifts our behavior. For example, one study showed that when people were primed with security values, their curiosity decreased. On the flip side, another study showed that priming people with self-direction values increased curiosity (Maio, Pakizeh, Cheung, & Rees, 2009). 

Another set of studies showed that priming people with achievement values increased their success at completing a puzzle but made them less helpful to the experimenter. On the flip side, priming people with a benevolence value decreased their success at the puzzle and increased their helpfulness (Maio, Pakizeh, Cheung, & Rees, 2009).

All this is to say that the core values we hold influence our behavior and therefore our lives. That’s why it’s so important to be clear about our values. If we are clear about our values and keep them top of mind then they can guide us in ways that are likely to get us to where we want to go and make us a bit happier.

One of the easiest ways to assess your core values is with a simple quiz. Just ask yourself how important a bunch of different values are to you. There are many more values than the ones that are included on this quiz, but this can be a good place to start.

​Rate the following values on a scale from 1 (Not important) to 10 (Very important).

For those of you who just completed the core values quiz, you should now have your top 5 core values. Here is an example from when I did this activity. My highest-ranked values were: Creativity, Kindness, Freedom, Achievement, and Equality. Ranking these was hard, but I settled on this order for my core values list: 

1. Creativity
2. Kindness
3. Equality
4. Freedom
5. Achievement

For some people who do this activity, you may notice that your values are similar. It’s okay to group values that seem similar. In fact, it can be helpful to do so. That way you get a better sense of your core values across different domains of life. For example, I might group Kindness and Equality together in my values list because they represent a similar thing to me. More specifically, I value being good to others, and this includes things like kindness, empathy, and fair treatment.

I suggest an end goal of having 3-4 values that are clearly distinct and represent different parts of yourself.

Personal core values vs. company core values
So far we’ve been talking about personal core values. But it’s helpful to keep in mind we may also have a different set of values in different contexts in our lives. For example, our company may have a set of values that we live by at work—for example, maybe our company’s values are Customer Service, Honesty, and Ingenuity.

We might even have slightly different values in the context of different relationships. For example, perhaps love and honesty are core values in the context of our marriage while fun and liveliness are core values in the context of our friendships. Just keep in mind that it’s okay to have these variations in different parts of your life.

If you feel like the core values quiz above missed some of your important values, here is a list of even more values (for an even bigger list of values, go here). Feel free to add these to your core values list if they are highly important to you.

Values Exercise #1: Making values actionable
For each of your top five values, add a verb to it. That is, describe for yourself how you can live each of your core values.

• For example, if your value is ​love, what will your action be? It could be to ‘act with love’, ‘show love’, or even ‘receive love with acceptance‘.
• If your value is optimism, your actions might be to ‘look at life with optimism’ or ‘think optimistically’.
• If your value is health, your actions might be to ‘eat healthfully’, or ‘build a healthy lifestyle‘. 

Not all values are easy to add a verb to, but regardless, try to think of the actions that can help you live the value.

Values Exercise #2: How do you live your values?
Once you know your core values, how can you use this information to boost your well-being? Well, in general, it feels better to live our values than not live our values. So here’s an exercise to better understand how you currently live your values and how you might engage in additional behaviors that are aligned with your values.

• Start by thinking about (or writing down) ways that you currently live each of your top 5 core values. For example, if your value is adventurousness, what do you do to be adventurous? 
• Next, ask yourself if you engage in any behaviors that go against your top 5 core values. For example, in what ways are you not brave, wise, or compassionate (or whatever your values are)? If your value is patience, do you ever snap at your kids? Or, if your value is modesty, do you frequently brag about yourself? Try to notice ways in which you are not living your values.
• Lastly, ask yourself if there are new behaviors you could engage in to better live these values. For example, how might you be more creative, sociable, or honest (or whatever your values are)?

Hopefully, these exercises can help you make the best use of knowing your values. That way, your values can help you boost your well-being.

Want to keep getting to know yourself and your values better? Here are some other articles to read:

• Allen, M. W., Ng, S. H., & Wilson, M. (2002). A functional approach to instrumental and terminal values and the value‐attitude‐behaviour system of consumer choice. European journal of Marketing.
• Gibson, J. W., Greenwood, R. A., & Murphy Jr, E. F. (2009). Generational differences in the workplace: Personal values, behaviors, and popular beliefs. Journal of Diversity Management (JDM), 4(3), 1-8.
• ​​Limthanakom, N., Lauffer, W., Mujtaba, B. G., & Murphy Jr, E. F. (2008). The Ranking Of Terminal And Instrumental Values By Working Professionals In Thailand, Singapore And The United States: What Is Important And How Do They Impact Decision-Making? International Business & Economics Research Journal (IBER), 7(4).
• Maio, G. R., Pakizeh, A., Cheung, W. Y., & Rees, K. J. (2009). Changing, priming, and acting on values: effects via motivational relations in a circular model. Journal of personality and social psychology, 97(4), 699.