What do you think of when you think of core values? If you’re like me you probably think “what’s the big deal, doesn’t everyone basically have the same core values?” Right? Aren’t we all just out here trying to be good people? How does identifying our core values really help us?

Knowing your personal core values is actually essential to your own self-confidence, self-worth, and goal setting and achieving. Why you may be asking, because I know I asked the same question when someone posed this thought to me.  

Core values help us to align our lives. They are like guidelines so we can better understand what’s important to us. They help us to step into self-confidence when we embody our core values.

Ready to learn exactly how your core values can help you build self-confidence and how to discover what yours are? Let’s dive in!

1. Clear Sense of Purpose: Having a clear idea of what your core values are gives you a clear sense of direction and purpose in life. You can align your decisions when it comes to life direction and purpose with your core values and feel confident in them. Say you get a new job offer but it goes against your core values, you will know for certain that it’s not the right opportunity for you.

2. Consistency in Action: Consistency creates trust. Unfortunately, many of us don’t actually trust ourselves to take care of ourselves or to act in a way that is beneficial to our greater good. By knowing your core values, you can act in alignment with them. This will lead to a greater consistency in your actions, decisions, and behaviors, thus reinforcing more self-trust and confidence when it comes to acting in a way that is for your highest self.

3. Stronger Decision Making: If a decision isn’t feeling quite right to you, check in with your core values. Does the answer adhere to your values, or does it go against them? Once you’ve checked in with your core values, you can boldly go forward once you feel the right choice adheres to your personal core values. You can confidently trust yourself to make the right decisions for yourself.

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4. Authenticity: Have you struggled with showing up as your authentic self? Who even is that? By learning what your core values are it will help you to stand more in your powerful authenticity. I know what’s important to me, and I feel more confident in myself because of it. Before I felt a little wishy-washy. When you live a life in accordance with your core values, you can show up more authentically and be truer to yourself. This drastically improves your self-confidence because you have a better understanding of who your authentic self actually is.

5. Less Self-Doubt: Do you often second guess yourself? Constantly making pros and cons list before you can give anyone an answer? By understanding your core values, you reduce the need to second guess yourself. You’re more grounded in what matters the most to you and you can trust yourself to make the right decisions based on that.

6. Improved Resilience: Knowing your core values gives you a stronger foundation. Having a strong foundation will help you bounce back easier from challenges and setbacks. We all face them in life, but by knowing your core values and having a deeper understanding of who you are, we can get back up and wipe the dirt off and try again.

7. Healthy Boundaries: Boundaries are an absolute must in life. But I bet most of us aren’t great at holding true to our boundaries. Our core values help us to set firmer boundaries and honor them. When you honor yourself and the boundaries you’ve set in place, you empower yourself, which leads to more self-confidence.

8. Clarity in Conflict: We all have to deal with conflict at some point. It can be difficult to stay grounded and centered during times of turbulence. Your core values guide you in times of conflict by helping you stay focused, calm, and centered. You know what you stand for which is so empowering!

9. Positive Self-Image: When you live in alignment with your core values, it fosters a more positive self-image. You’re behaving in ways that align with your highest self and for your greatest good. Your actions start to reflect who you truly are, which helps to build increase self-worth and build self-esteem.

10. Attracting Like-Minded People: By embodying your core values, you will naturally start to attract like-minded people. Birds of a feather flock together. This will create a more supportive and sustainable community for yourself. Your self-confidence will become stronger when you find people who encourage and support you.

All of that sounds good, right? But how do you actually discover what your core values are. I’ll share my favorite exercise for finding your core values with you in hopes that it will lead you on a path of self-confidence. All you need for this exercise is a little bit of time, a pen, and a piece of paper. *I always recommend hand writing.*

Step 1: Divide your sheet of paper into two.

Step 2: On one side write down your top three life goals. This could be moving to a new country, becoming a teacher, opening your own business, writing a book. Be specific about these goals. You can choose to write down more goals, but three is a good number to start with.

Step 3: For goal number 1 write down why you want to achieve it on the other side of the paper. Why is this goal so important to you? What will you gain by achieving this goal? Example: You want to open your own business because you want to set your own schedule.

Step 4: Now ask yourself and write down why you want this outcome? If you want your own business to set your own schedule, why do you want to set your own schedule? Why is this want important to you?

Step 5: Continue asking yourself why until you’ve stripped back all the material, worldly aspects of your want. You will be left with your core value. You want to set your own schedule because you want to take more vacations. You want to take more vacations because you want to meet new people and see new things. You want to meet new people and see new things because you crave adventure and the freedom to have those adventures. Adventure and freedom would be your core values in this example.

Step 6: Repeat this for every goal you’ve written down. At the end you’ll be left with your core values, and you’ll have a better understanding of what’s important to you.

If you feel stuck at all, here is a list of some core values to help you out:

• Freedom
• Adventure
• Innovation
• Creativity
• Connection
• Finding purpose in life
• Pleasure/enjoying life
• Collaboration
• Diversity
• Kindness
• Fairness
• Ambition
• Beauty
• Love
• Achievement
• Altruism
• Autonomy
• Boldness
• Curiosity
• Growth
• Leadership
• Meaningful work
• Self-respect
• Status
• Peace

If you need more examples of core values, I love this article from Chasing Foxes that list 60 core values. 

There is no judgement when it comes to your core values. Not everyone’s core value needs to be altruism or kindness. It’s perfectly fine to have your core values be leadership, status, fame, whatever they are. As long as you’re living true to yourself and your core values, that’s what matters.

Let me know what your values are and how you’re going to start embodying them more! I’d love to hear from you!