3 Practical Steps to Identify Your Core Values

When you know what’s important to you, it’s easier to stay firm on your decisions, which solidifies your success when accomplishing personal goals.

Being aware of what’s important to you, that is...your values, allows you to maintain clear judgement about who you are. When you are sure of who you are, you are able to build on the character that others see in you.

Living through your beliefs allows you to be the REAL YOU rather than living by someone else’s standards.

Core values and beliefs are critical because it’s how you can create your identity and understand how you fit in a community or in a relationship. They’re the foundation of what makes “good” and “bad” true to you. They’re also what helps you distinguish if something (or someone) is worth your time.

Because our values and beliefs are usually instilled within us at a young age, they can be a bit blurred or questioned as you live through experiences in life. Certain events may either strengthen your beliefs or doubt them.

There is nothing wrong with questioning your values and beliefs. It’s a natural process of growth. However, it can be stressful when you suddenly realize that something you truly valued or believed is no longer your truth. It’s even more daunting when you don’t know how to identify what your values are at that very moment or moving forward.

This is where this blog will help you. I have 3 specific steps that have helped me learn more about myself and what is important to me.

I am all too familiar with that feeling that your world is crashing and that sense that your life is in crisis depending on how much you structured your life around that value or belief. These growing moments make us go through phases that can cloud our judgments of what is real to us.

If you have felt (or feel) that way, then it is essential to share that this existential crisis is also a blessing in disguise because it lets us break through and transform ourselves in ways we’ve never imagined.

When I got married years back, I had a narrow mindset of what a marriage should be. My perspective was conservative and it was based on how I was brought up. In my eyes, there were unwritten laws and roles that each spouse had to follow and if our roles were not followed, then we were doing it wrong.

This is what I was taught in my upbringing. When my relationship did not work, I couldn’t understand how or why it failed because I did everything “right”.

It was truly in that separation period when I was forced to experience a new lifestyle, exposing me to events that eventually shaped new values within me. I got to understand what worked best for my marriage and learned values that now must be present in any relationship requiring my commitment.

Through a questioning period and open-mindedness, my partner and I were able to learn what worked best for us as a couple and a family. And as every family, these values will most likely be passed on to my children, both intentionally and unintentionally.

Now, the process of identifying your core values or beliefs is applicable in many areas, not just relationships. I have seen re-identification of core values in religions and in management restructuring within professional settings.

A theme you may not immediately notice between core values and the areas I just mentioned is commitment. If you are in a position where your core beliefs do not align with another person’s (or entity’s) values, it is less likely that you will be able to commit to that person or consider yourself part of that entity. This is why some people fail to commit to one another, a religion, a profession or even a community.

If you find yourself in a position where you are unsure of what your values or beliefs are at this point in time, the exercise I am about to share can help you identify them during your growing process.

There are 3 steps to identify your core values or beliefs.

Jotting down personal thoughts that come to mind when experiencing specific situations is a good place to start increasing your awareness of your personal views. But you must write them down and not digest them in the moment. Instead, wait it out. Give it a few days before you review your thoughts.

The reason it is better to wait a few days before reflecting on your thoughts is that those thoughts initially came on to you on an impulse based on whatever situation you faced at that moment. Allowing yourself time to forget about it and later on coming back to it will give you the opportunity to digest your written thoughts with a fresh eyes and mindset.

Not allowing a delay may increase the risk of not seeing your thoughts from a different point of view. The point of waiting to digest what you wrote is to shift your perspective in a way that you can view from outside of the scenario. It will allow you to be more objective about the scenario, your thought process in that scenario and your behavior. You will be able to identify which feelings and thoughts remain true while being outside of the situation versus the ones that appeared to be true when you are “in the moment”.

When you read your thoughts and reflect, ask yourself:

• Do I still feel that same way?

• Was my opinion or thoughts exaggerated or taken out of context now that I read it?

• Which part of my thought process during that time is not necessarily true in my eyes but I manipulated my view based on the situation or feeling?

In the reflection period, you are more likely to find distortions in what you believe is to be true outside of the scenario. Going back and reading what you wrote can help you identify what is still “true” for you versus a false belief that caused you to behave or react a certain way. Ideally, you want to try and find illusions that you created for yourself.

Are you conscious of the words that come out of your mouth? Are the word choices that you’re using intentional? If you are unsure of what words or phrases you are using when describing a thing, a person, an event, or a feeling, then you will want to start paying attention to that because many times we use words to express unconscious beliefs.

Word choices tell us a lot about how we perceive our experience with anything and everything. Are they negative or positive? Do they sound indifferent after reflecting on what you said?

If you allow yourself the opportunity to learn more about yourself through this exercise, you will give yourself the gift of self-awareness. You might just be able to catch assumptions that you already have in your mind when describing something or someone.

The word choices that come out of our mouths are automatic reactions of our assumptions, whether or not we are aware of them. We tend to inflict specific word choices on situations just because assumptions are already embedded in our minds.

This is often the case when people display micro-inequities or micro-aggressions. When someone displays micro-inequity, they are singling out or overlooking other individuals, typically revolving around race or gender. This may be intentional (which let me not even go there) or perhaps not.

Sometimes we see people undergoing implicit bias, which is how certain stereotypes or attitudes affect the way we see things or people around us without being aware of it. With micro-aggressions, we may be unintentionally marginalizing others without realizing we are and making others feel uncomfortable as a result of that word we chose to say.

For example, stating “you’re the whitest black person I know” or vice versa “you’re the blackest white person I know” may offend someone who is just being themselves and not trying to be another race. Biracial and multiracial individuals tend to fall victim to these phrases. Or what about complimenting a Mexican-American for speaking clear proper English when they were actually born and raised with English as their first language?

If you feel guilty of using word choices that reflect implicit bias, you must ask yourself, was it really your intention to create discomfort? Probably not. Maybe you have friends and family members who fall under those categories. Yet, you still did it anyways. This is a perfect example of when your beliefs may not align with your word choices.

Identifying how you are expressing your assumptions gives you the chance to expose the belief system by which you are structuring your life around. It will help you identify which beliefs you truly value.

Let’s not forget assumptions hidden behind emotions. How you react through your emotions also affects the words that you choose to describe an assumption or how you interact in a particular situation.

When we express ourselves in terms of emotion, it makes it real and true to us. What we fail to realize is that many times a belief we are projecting onto others may not always be true but we don’t even notice it because that false belief is masked by an emotion that is often validated. Emotions are feelings and our feelings are true.

Try identifying certain assumptions through feelings: “ ____ makes me feel …”

The beauty of this particular step is that it helps you distinguish feelings from assumptions, which can be hard to do without practice. Your mind is actually conditioned to focus on your emotions rather than the beliefs and assumptions behind them.

Step 3 allows you to be conscious of how you express yourself with respect to certain topics and how you can better communicate with others.

Beliefs and values are instilled upon us since we are children. We do not give much thought to them or how they shape the way we react in certain events. As we grow older, some experiences may clash with what we think are our beliefs or values, forcing us to learn new ones. To identify assumptions that make up your belief system, you will need to be mindful of your thoughts, the word choices you choose when speaking your mind and your emotions.

This blog shows you 3 practical steps to increase your awareness in those areas so that you can better identify your core beliefs and values.