How to find your core values (with a simple exercise)
Most advice on values leaves you staring at a wall of nice words — integrity, growth, family, freedom — nodding along to all of them and none of them. They all sound good. That's the problem. When everything is a value, nothing is, and you walk away no clearer than when you started. If you've ever tried to work out how to find your core values and ended up with a tidy list you never looked at again, you're not doing it wrong. You've just been handed a vague exercise dressed up as a profound one.
Core values aren't the words you'd like to be true about you. They're the handful of things you'll actually defend when it costs you something. This piece is about finding those — the real ones — with an exercise you can do in twenty minutes.
What core values actually are
A core value is a principle you keep coming back to when you have to choose. Not an aspiration, not a slogan for your fridge — a genuine tiebreaker. When two good options pull in different directions, your values are what quietly decide.
The test is cost. Anyone can claim to value honesty when the truth is convenient. You find out what you actually value in the moments it's expensive: when honesty risks an awkward conversation, when loyalty means turning down something you want, when discipline means the harder path with no one watching. Values you only hold when they're free aren't really yours yet. That gap between the words you'd pick and the way you actually behave is worth paying attention to — it's the same honest look that sits at the heart of what character really is and how you build it.
Why the vague versions don't stick
There are two reasons the usual values exercise fails you.
The first is that it asks you to choose aspirationally. Handed a list of admirable words, you naturally pick the ones you wish described you. That gives you a flattering list and a false one. The second is that it lets you keep too many. A list of fifteen values isn't a compass — it's a menu, and a menu can justify almost any decision after the fact.
Real values do work. They cost you options. If a value never rules anything out, it isn't guiding you; it's just decorating you.
A simple exercise to find your core values
Here's a concrete way through it. Give it twenty focused minutes and a bit of honesty. You'll need a pen or a notes app.
Step 1 — Shortlist from the list
Read through this list and tick every word that genuinely resonates. Don't overthink it, and don't worry yet about narrowing down — tick freely, even fifteen or twenty.
Honesty · Courage · Kindness · Discipline · Loyalty · Freedom · Growth · Curiosity · Fairness · Generosity · Patience · Independence · Security · Adventure · Creativity · Compassion · Ambition · Humility · Reliability · Craftsmanship · Health · Family · Faithfulness · Justice · Calm · Contribution · Honour · Wisdom · Playfulness · Resilience
Step 2 — Cut it to ten
Now be stricter. From your ticks, keep only the ten that feel most you — not most impressive. If a word is there because it sounds good rather than because it's true, cross it out. Ten is still generous; that's fine for now.
Step 3 — Test each one against a real memory
Take each of your ten and ask: when did this last cost me something? Try to recall an actual moment you acted on it when it would have been easier not to. If you can find a real example, the value earns its place. If you genuinely can't — if it's only ever been convenient — set it aside. This is the step that separates the values you hold from the ones you admire.
Step 4 — Narrow to about five
From what survives Step 3, choose around five. Five is the sweet spot: few enough to remember under pressure, enough to cover the different corners of your life. If two words feel like cousins — say, honesty and integrity — merge them and pick the one that sounds like you.
Step 5 — Write the line, not just the word
For each of your five, write one plain sentence about what it looks like in practice. Not "I value discipline" but "Discipline means I do the important thing before the urgent thing, even when I'm tired." Concrete beats abstract every time. A word is easy to nod at; a sentence is something you can actually live up to — or notice when you don't.
That's it. Five values, five sentences. You now have something you can steer by.
Living from them (not just knowing them)
A values list on a page changes nothing. What changes things is running decisions through it. When you're torn — should I take this on, say yes to this, stay in this — ask which option your values would choose, and notice how often the honest answer is already obvious. Values mostly work by giving you permission to say no to good things that aren't yours.
They also quietly reshape who you become, which is the whole point. It's tempting to chase the outcome and hope the character comes free, but it works the other way round — as we've written in character versus achievement, the person you become on the way to your goals outlasts any single goal. Living from clear values is how you become the person, not just finish the task. And when a value keeps slipping — you keep meaning to act on it and don't — that's usually not a values problem but a follow-through one, which is its own learnable skill worth building some self-discipline around.
When your values change
One reassurance: this isn't a life sentence. Your core values will shift as your life does — what mattered most at twenty-two is rarely the exact list at forty, and that's not failure, it's what genuine personal growth looks like. Redo the exercise every year or so. You'll usually find the core holds steady while the edges move, and that steady core is a large part of what makes decisions feel less exhausting over time.
How Thrivr puts this into practice
Naming your values is the start; the harder, better part is watching yourself live them, honestly, over months. Thrivr's character feature lets you choose the qualities you actually want to grow — the ones from your list — and check in on them each week as Rarely, Sometimes, Often, or Consistently. It's not about scoring yourself or feeling guilty for the gaps. It's a quiet, regular look at whether the words on your list are becoming the way you live. Because a value you never revisit is just a nice sentence — and you're building something more real than that.