Core values aren't the destination

At a recent Core Values Discovery Workshop, we had reached the point where the participants had narrowed their list down to the concepts that seemed to represent what mattered most to them. 

One attendee told me the process had opened up a lot for him. He had come into the workshop thinking he knew what his core values were, but the conversation was making him reconsider some of those assumptions.

He leant against the wall and whispered conspiratorily – could he ask me a question. Of course, I said.

"What do I do if I don't like my core values?"

I asked him to tell me more.

He explained that when he looked at the values he had identified, they just seemed kind of...dull. Not the values of someone he’d want to spend more time with.

This wasn't the first time someone had asked me a version of this question. And every time it happens, my instinct as a facilitator is to fix it. I want to say something that makes the person feel better about the words in front of them and help them see their values differently. To encourage them to see themselves for the unique, amazing person they are. 

But I've been thinking about this question more since that workshop, and I'm realizing that trying to make someone feel better about their core values might actually miss the point.

Because the resistance itself is a clue.

Your core values are the things that matter the most to you.

So if you go through the work of identifying yours and find yourself thinking, "I don't really like what this says about me," that's interesting. That is worth investigating. 

Maybe the discomfort reveals an assumption you've been carrying for years. Maybe there's a gap between the person you think you should be and the person you actually are. Maybe there's a way to reframe what one of those values means to you.

I can't tell you which one it is, and I don't think I'm supposed to. The resistance is just a data point. Investigating it is what gives you a deeper understanding of yourself. And that’s where the money is.

If this is you and you want to figure it out further, start by getting curious about the story you're telling yourself about your core values. (You can follow this same process for anything you don’t like about yourself, by the way). 

Imagine your core values are compassion, community, and responsibility. 

You look at that list and think: Boring.

Okay. Why? What's the story you associate with responsibility? Why does community feel like a drag? What have you learned, experienced, or absorbed that makes compassion feel like something you don't want defining you?

And then there are some harder questions. What is the gap between how you want to see yourself and what you think these values say about you? Why does that gap bother you? Where did that idea come from? 

You might not immediately know the answers. That's okay. Asking the questions is part of developing a stronger understanding of what these values actually mean to you, rather than what you think they're supposed to mean.

This brings me back to a bigger question that sits underneath all of this: where does self-love come from?

It starts with a sense of self. You can't love what you don't know.

Considering that we spend our entire lives inside our own heads, it's remarkable how difficult it can be to know ourselves well. In her book Insight, organizational psychologist Dr. Tasha Eurich reports findings from her research program suggesting that while about 95% of people believe they are self-aware, only an estimated 10-15% actually meet the criteria for true self-awareness.  

We experience the world through our own lens. The way we think, the decisions we make, and the way we interpret things tend to feel reasonable to us. Someone else can look at the exact same thing and interpret it completely differently, and their interpretation feels just as reasonable to them.

Developing self-awareness means getting curious about that lens and learning to see ourselves – and the world – a little more objectively. That's where core values become really useful.

I talk about core values a lot, but the goal isn't simply to end up with a beautiful list of words that feels exactly right. Core values are a tool and a language that help us engage with ourselves and the outside world. They're a vehicle for developing a deeper sense of self; understanding what matters to us and why. 

That means the work doesn't end once you've identified your values. You can keep asking what they mean to you, how they show up in your decisions, how they relate to the work you're doing, and even why some of them might make you uncomfortable.

Knowing your core values is not the destination. It’s a way to understand yourself more deeply so you can engage more intentionally with those around you and the world you want to change.