What Are Personal Values? How to Define Yours and Use Them as Your Internal Compass

Personal values are broad, desirable goals that motivate your actions and serve as guiding principles in your life. They represent your fundamental beliefs about what’s important to you—like integrity, creativity, family, achievement, or helping others. When your actions align with your values, you experience greater satisfaction, clarity in decision-making, and a stronger sense of meaning in your work. But most people have never explicitly identified their values—like trying to navigate with a compass you’ve never looked at.

Key Takeaways:

• Values are not goals: Values describe how you want to behave (ongoing process); goals are what you want to achieve (specific outcomes)
• Research shows alignment matters: When your work aligns with your values, you experience greater satisfaction, better performance, and significantly lower burnout risk
• Most values are unconscious until examined: Identifying your 4-5 core values through structured reflection provides the clarity needed for confident decision-making
• Values evolve with you: Your core values are generally stable but can change through life experiences, transitions, and personal growth—that’s normal and healthy

What Are Personal Values? (The Definition)

Personal values are broad, desirable goals that motivate your actions and serve as guiding principles across all areas of your life. According to Shalom Schwartz’s Theory of Basic Values—the most validated values framework in behavioral research—values are beliefs linked to emotion that transcend specific situations and guide how you evaluate choices and behavior.

Values aren’t abstract philosophical concepts. They’re the invisible forces steering every major decision you make.

Psychology Today explains that values are more enduring than beliefs or attitudes. They form a significant part of your identity and shape your authentic self. Values are fundamental beliefs about what’s important to you—and unlike your interests or your skills, they persist across contexts. You carry them with you whether you’re at work, at home, or making a career decision.

Here’s what makes values different: they transcend specific situations. Your value of integrity guides behavior in your career, your relationships, your community involvement. It doesn’t change based on where you are.

Schwartz’s research, validated across 80+ countries, identifies ten universal basic values that exist in all cultures. While the priorities differ from person to person, the values themselves show up everywhere: Self-direction, Stimulation, Achievement, Security, Tradition, and five others.

Common personal values include:
– Integrity (honesty, authenticity)
– Creativity (innovation, self-expression)
– Family (connection, love)
– Achievement (competence, success)
– Helping others (service, compassion)
– Independence (autonomy, freedom)
– Security (safety, stability)

But here’s where it gets confusing: values often get mixed up with goals, interests, or beliefs. They’re not the same thing.

Values vs. Goals vs. Beliefs (The Distinctions)

Values are how you want to behave; goals are what you want to achieve. That’s the fundamental distinction.

Values are ongoing processes that never end—you can’t “complete” being honest or creative. Never finished. Goals are specific outcomes you accomplish and move on from. Research from WorkLife Psychology makes this clear: values describe how you want to behave and are ongoing processes that persist throughout your life, while goals are specific outcomes you accomplish and complete.

Here’s the thing: most goal-setting advice completely misses this. You can’t achieve your way into living your values.

Think about the difference in practice. “Be a compassionate leader” is a value—it’s how you want to show up every single day. “Become VP by age 35” is a goal—it’s an outcome you’re aiming for. The VP title might help you express your value of leadership, but it’s not the value itself.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy research emphasizes this too: values are constantly instantiated but never achieved as objects. Goals, on the other hand, are completable. And when goals flow from your values rather than external pressures, they’re more meaningful and you’re more likely to achieve them.

Values also differ from beliefs (which are cognitive positions you hold) and interests (which are more changeable preferences). Your values are deeper and more stable. They’re part of who you are.

So if values are that fundamental, why do they matter so much? Turns out, the research is pretty clear.

Why Personal Values Matter (The Research)

When your work aligns with your personal values, research shows you experience greater career satisfaction, better job performance, and significantly lower burnout risk. This isn’t soft self-help—it’s backed by decades of psychology research on values, meaning, and work.

Research published in the Journal of Personality found that “when individuals choose a career that facilitates the attainment of their values, they have greater career satisfaction and perform better.” The mechanism is straightforward: when you can express your core values through your work, you show up with more energy, more engagement, and more effectiveness.

Values misalignment doesn’t just make you unhappy—it makes you worse at your job.

Here’s what the research shows about values alignment:

• Career satisfaction increases: People in values-aligned work report higher satisfaction with their careers and their lives overall
• Performance improves: When work lets you express your values, you perform better—research confirms the connection
• Burnout risk drops: Research indicates that 40% of employees leave their jobs because they feel a lack of purpose, often rooted in values misalignment between personal values and workplace culture
• Stress decreases: APA research shows that working in values-aligned environments significantly reduces work-related stress and improves well-being
• Decision-making gets clearer: Values serve as an internal compass for evaluating opportunities—when you know what matters, choices become easier

And here’s where values connect to finding meaning in your life: Amy Wrzesniewski’s research on calling orientation shows that individuals who view work as a calling experience it as aligned with their personal values and sense of self. It’s about doing work that expresses who you are.

Values also matter for psychological well-being beyond work. GoodTherapy notes that values clarification helps people resolve anxiety and depression stemming from unresolved moral dilemmas. When you’re not living according to your values, that internal dissonance shows up as stress, dissatisfaction, and that gnawing feeling that something’s off.

Most people know their values matter. The problem? They’ve never actually identified what their values are.

How to Identify Your Core Values (The Method)

To identify your core values, start by reflecting on moments when you felt most fulfilled, identify people you admire and why, review a values list to find what resonates, group related values by themes, and narrow to your top 4-5 core values. This process takes honest reflection—your values are already there; you’re just making them explicit.

Scott Jeffrey’s seven-step exercise provides a practical framework:

Step 1: Reflect on peak moments
When did you feel most fulfilled, proud, or truly alive? Not when you achieved something external, but when you felt most yourself. What was happening? What values were you expressing?

Step 2: Identify admiration
Who do you admire—people you know personally or public figures? What about them resonates with you? Often what you admire in others reflects values you hold or aspire to.

Step 3: Review a values list
Look at Schwartz’s 10 universal values plus common examples like integrity, creativity, adventure, learning, family, service, independence. Select 10-15 that genuinely resonate. Don’t overthink this—go with your gut.

Step 4: Group and identify themes
Look for patterns in your selected values. Maybe “creativity,” “learning,” and “innovation” all cluster together as a core theme of “growth.” Maybe “integrity,” “honesty,” and “authenticity” point to a value of “being genuine.” What’s the deeper pattern?

Step 5: Narrow to top 4-5 core values
You can’t have 50 priorities. Most practitioners recommend focusing on 4-5 core values. This provides enough clarity to guide decisions without creating overwhelm. Your values serve as the primary filter for every decision—so focus helps you show up with intention.

Step 6: Get outside feedback
Don’t skip this step. You have blind spots about yourself. Everyone does. Ask 2-3 people who know you well: “When you think of me, what values come to mind?” Do their observations match your chosen values? The disconnect—if there is one—tells you something important.

Step 7: Test against real decisions
Look at past major decisions you’ve made. Do your stated values explain those choices? Look at future decisions you’re facing. Do your values provide clarity about which direction to go? If not, you may need to revise.

ACT research emphasizes that values clarification involves reflecting on what truly matters in different life domains—family, career, spirituality, health, personal growth. Your values should show up across domains, even if you prioritize them differently in different contexts.

This exercise feels abstract at first. That’s normal. Therapist Aid notes that values clarification exercises are especially powerful during times of life transition, confusion about decisions, or professional burnout—exactly when reflection feels hardest.

Most people’s values are partly or wholly unconscious until they deliberately examine them. You’re bringing what’s already there into conscious awareness.

Once you’ve identified your values, it helps to understand where they fit in the broader landscape of human values.

Schwartz’s 10 Universal Values (The Framework)

Shalom Schwartz identified 10 universal basic human values that exist across all cultures: Self-direction, Stimulation, Hedonism, Achievement, Power, Security, Conformity, Tradition, Benevolence, and Universalism. These values form a circular model where compatible values are adjacent and conflicting values are opposite.

Schwartz’s Theory of Basic Values is the dominant framework for assessing values—validated across 80+ countries and the most tested transcultural theory in behavioral research.

Here are the ten values:

Here’s what makes Schwartz’s model powerful: the circular structure explains why some decisions feel torn. Values that are adjacent in the circle are compatible—like Benevolence and Universalism, which both involve transcending self-interest. Values that are opposite conflict—like Power (dominance) and Universalism (equality), or Tradition (respect for customs) and Stimulation (seeking novelty).

I love it.

You’ve probably felt this tension: the part of you that values Security wants the stable job with good benefits. The part of you that values Stimulation wants to start the risky venture. Both are legitimate values. They just pull in opposite directions.

Understanding this model won’t solve your value conflicts. But it’ll help you stop beating yourself up for having them.

The four higher-order dimensions group these ten values: Openness to Change (Self-direction, Stimulation), Conservation (Security, Conformity, Tradition), Self-Transcendence (Benevolence, Universalism), and Self-Enhancement (Achievement, Power). Where you fall on these dimensions shapes major life choices.

Schwartz isn’t the only framework worth knowing. Viktor Frankl approached values from a different angle—through meaning.

Frankl’s Three Avenues to Meaning (Alternative Framework)

Viktor Frankl, who developed logotherapy after surviving Nazi concentration camps, identified three avenues through which people discover meaning through values: Creative values (work, art, building), Experiential values (love, relationships, beauty), and Attitudinal values (attitude toward unavoidable suffering).

Frankl’s core insight: meaning exists to be discovered, not created. Life has meaning under all circumstances, including the most undesirable. The quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing.

Creative values are what you create, contribute, or build. Your work, your projects, your art. The things you bring into the world that weren’t there before.

Experiential values are what you experience and receive. Love, relationships, connection with nature, encounters with beauty, moments of deep presence. You don’t create these—you experience them.

Attitudinal values are your attitude toward circumstances you can’t change. This is the hardest category to grasp but maybe the most profound: how you choose to face unavoidable suffering. Resilience, dignity, courage in the face of what you cannot control.

Frankl’s third avenue—attitudinal values—is what most self-help misses entirely.

Different from Schwartz’s motivational categories, Frankl’s framework is less about what drives you and more about how you find meaning. Both frameworks are useful. Schwartz helps you understand the structure of values and why some conflict. Frankl helps you see how values create meaning even—especially—when circumstances are hard.

So you’ve identified your values. Now what? How do you actually use them?

Using Values for Career Decisions (The Application)

Use your values to evaluate career opportunities by asking: Does this role let me express my core values daily? Does the company culture align with what I value? Will this work move me toward or away from living according to my values? These questions cut through salary, title, and status to what actually matters.

When you know your values, career decisions become clearer. You’re not choosing based on external validation—you’re choosing based on internal alignment.

I spent years making career decisions based on what looked good on paper rather than what aligned with my values. I know you have bills to pay. This isn’t about ignoring practical realities. But when you have options—and even when you think you don’t—values provide the compass.

Here are the evaluation questions to ask:

• Does this role let me express my core values on a regular basis?
• Does the company culture support or conflict with my values?
• Can I be myself here, or will I have to suppress parts of who I am?
• Will this work move me closer to or further from the person I want to be?
• Am I choosing this because it aligns with my values, or because of external pressure?

A job that pays well but violates your values will eventually break you. It’s just a matter of time.

Wrzesniewski’s calling research shows that work as calling requires alignment between work and personal values plus sense of self. Career satisfaction comes from values expression, not just skill utilization.

When you’re torn between two options, ask: which choice aligns more closely with my top values? That question cuts through the noise.

Red flags for values misalignment:
– You can’t talk about what matters to you at work
– The way decisions are made conflicts with your integrity
– Success is defined in ways that don’t resonate with you
– You feel like you’re playing a role rather than being yourself

Values clarity is especially critical during transitions, burnout, or those “something feels off” moments. Research shows that values clarification exercises are particularly powerful during life transitions—exactly when you need clarity most.

And here’s the connection to your broader journey: align your values and actions and you’re not just building a career. You’re building a life that feels coherent, purposeful, and deeply yours.

One more thing to address: Can your values change?

Values Evolution and Change (The Reality)

Yes, your values can change—and that’s normal. While values are generally stable and enduring, they can evolve through life experiences, major transitions, personal growth, and changing life circumstances. Research confirms values are not fixed in stone.

As BetterUp explains, “As your definition of success changes, your personal values change.” What you valued at 25 may not be what you value at 45—that’s growth, not inconsistency.

Life experiences shift value priorities. Parenthood often elevates Security and Family while Adventure and Stimulation may recede (not disappear, just reorder). Career changes, illness, loss, falling in love—these reshape what matters most.

If your values at 40 are identical to your values at 22, you probably haven’t been paying attention.

Unchanging values aren’t a sign of integrity.

They’re a sign you’ve stopped growing.

Scott Jeffrey notes that values can change with life experiences, and it’s healthy to periodically re-examine them. Annual check-ins or reviews during major life changes help you stay aware of shifts.

What you’re likely to find: your core values remain relatively stable, but their relative importance shifts. The value doesn’t disappear; its priority changes. Maybe Achievement was your top value in your twenties, driving career advancement. In your forties, it’s still there, but Family or Service has moved to first position. That’s evolution, not abandonment.

Fear that values change means you’re inconsistent or inauthentic is common. It doesn’t. It means you’re human and you’re learning. Connecting to your higher self involves operating from your authentic values—and those can shift as you grow.

Let’s address a few common questions about values.

FAQ (Common Questions)

Here are answers to the most common questions about personal values.

How many core values should I have?

Most practitioners recommend focusing on 4-5 core values. This provides enough clarity to guide decisions without creating overwhelm or losing focus. You can’t have 50 priorities—that’s the same as having no priorities. Scott Jeffrey’s framework emphasizes narrowing to a focused set so your values can actually serve as filters for decision-making.

What if my values conflict with each other?

Value conflicts are normal. Schwartz’s circular model shows that some values naturally conflict—like Security versus Stimulation, or Achievement versus Work-Life Balance. Awareness of the conflict helps you make conscious trade-offs rather than feeling torn without understanding why. You’re not broken. You’re human.

What if my values don’t match my current job?

Values misalignment leads to dissatisfaction, stress, and burnout. You have options: find ways to express your values within your current role (job crafting—Wrzesniewski’s research shows this works), have conversations with leadership about alignment, or consider transitioning to work that better fits your values. Staying in values-misaligned work long-term has costs.

Can I have different values in different life areas?

Your core values apply across life areas, but you may prioritize them differently in different contexts. Achievement may be high priority at work while Family is high priority at home. Both are still your values—you’re just expressing them differently based on context. That’s not inconsistency; that’s integration.

Are values the same as strengths or skills?

No. Strengths and skills are what you’re good at. Values are what’s important to you. You might be skilled at sales but not value it. The world will pay you for your strengths. But your values are what make the work meaningful. The sweet spot is work that uses your strengths AND aligns with your values.

Now you know what values are, why they matter, and how to identify yours. Here’s what to do next.

Your Next Steps

Your values are your internal compass—but only if you’ve taken the time to read the compass. Most people spend more time planning a vacation than identifying the values that should guide their entire life. Don’t be most people.

Here’s what you know now: Values are fundamental beliefs that guide decisions and create meaning. They’re different from goals—ongoing processes rather than achievable outcomes. Research shows that when your work aligns with your values, everything improves: satisfaction, performance, resilience, clarity.

And you have a method: reflect on peak moments, identify who you admire, review values lists, group by themes, narrow to 4-5 core values, get feedback, test against decisions. The seven-step process works—but you have to actually do it.

Create your personal manifesto once you’ve identified your values. That’s the natural next step—articulating what you stand for based on what you’ve discovered matters most.

Values clarity is the foundation for discovering meaningful work. You can’t know if work is meaningful if you don’t know what meaning means to you. And when you examine your values more deeply, you’re not just making better career decisions—you’re building a life that feels coherent and true.

Concrete next steps:

• Complete the 7-step values identification exercise this week
• Get feedback from 2-3 people who know you well
• Test your identified values against a recent major decision
• Revisit your values annually or during major transitions

Living your values isn’t a one-time project. It’s an ongoing practice. But it starts with knowing what those values actually are.

Take the next step. I believe in you.