The meaning of personal values and how they impact your life

Whether you’re deciding to make a career change or trying to make space for more self-care, defining your personal values can act as a guide. But what’s the meaning of personal values, and how can you identify yours? 

You might not have a list of values sitting in your desk drawer. But the choices you’ve made throughout your life likely point to a pattern of priorities. 

Let’s say you value reaching certain professional milestones over excelling at your fitness goals. A new job offer comes your way. The recruiter explains that the schedule is demanding, and the job responsibilities have a steep learning curve.

But it’ll push you to grow your career in transformative ways. If you place a high value on your work goals, you’ll probably say “Yes,” even if it means stepping back from the 5K run you were training for. 

There’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to your personal values. Your true values can’t and shouldn’t be suppressed. They make life fulfilling and give you a better sense of self-awareness.

And without a clear understanding of them, you might struggle with self-discovery — the process of finding your true self. As a result, you may find it hard to make decisions, advance your career, or live a meaningful life.

What's the meaning of personal values?

Personal values are a set of guiding principles and beliefs that help you differentiate between “good” and “bad.” These are concepts like integrity versus dishonesty or hard work versus cutting corners. Everyone prioritizes their core values differently, and yours shape how you uniquely move through the world. 

Personal values influence your behaviors, relationships, and everyday life. They guide you through important decision-making, influence personal development, and carve your ideal career path. 

Everyone has a unique set of values. What matters to you might not align with your friends and coworkers. But you’re more likely to share personal core values with the people closest to you.

Research shows that you might even be more attracted to people who share your values. Partners, colleagues, and family members that share yours are big green flags for long-lasting relationships. 

And everyone expresses these values differently. Say you and your coworker both value community. Maybe you practice altruism and organize a company-wide food drive while your coworker plans leadership training for the whole team. These are both valid expressions of the same value. 

You may not be fully aware of your values, and identifying them can help you develop your career, cultivate interpersonal relationships, and spend your free time more purposefully. Understanding what’s important to you can help you align your actions with your inner self.

And this awareness helps you trim the toxic relationships, jobs, or situations that drain your energy so you can live your happiest life. It might even help you feel more fulfilled, since engaging in activities aligned with your values can ease depression and anxiety and improve your mental well-being.

Plus, having a career that reflects the types of values that are important to you can make you more passionate and purposeful in your work. This will ultimately help you succeed in your profession because you’ll have a deeper motivation to do well.

Personal values versus core beliefs

Both personal values and core beliefs guide your decisions and behavior, but you choose personal values and they’re typically positive, while you develop core beliefs during childhood and they can be harmful or untrue.

You might value honesty and hard work, and you might carry the core belief that you shouldn’t express your emotions because your parents didn’t.

The value is something you think is important and want to express through your behavior, and the core belief is something you believe to be true about the world or yourself, regardless of the evidence. 

There are three types of core beliefs:

• Beliefs about the self
• Beliefs about other people
• Beliefs about the world

Adjusting these is often more difficult than re-evaluating your values, but you can do so by defining your core beliefs, noting where they stem from, and re-framing your understanding of the issue.

Why are personal values important?

Your values form a significant part of your personal identity. They shape you into your authentic self and give you a sense of purpose and meaning, driving your personality, goal setting, and how you lead your life.

Your values also give you a better understanding of who you are. They help you work toward your dreams instead of against them. When you make decisions aligned with your personal values, you feel like your truest self. 

Personal values play an important role in your relationships, too. When you know how to articulate your values, you can set clear boundaries, establish healthy bonds, and develop relationships that honor your self-respect. 

And connecting with your values can help you connect with friends and coworkers who share them. A social network that shares your values can make your relationships more meaningful, supportive, and full of authenticity.

Lastly, prioritizing your values can help you communicate what you need in the workplace, with loved ones, and with friends. Sharing these important feelings can improve your overall well-being, since repressing your emotions can have harmful health effects. And psychologists believe that connecting to important personal values can act as strong motivation to recover your mental wellness. 

How can personal values improve self-awareness?

Self-awareness is your understanding of who you are and how you differ or align with other people. And self-knowledge — or how clearly you understand your values, attitudes, and behaviors — is integral to developing self-awareness. 

Deepening your self-awareness requires thoughtful self-reflection. It’s hard work that can make you confront behaviors, decisions, or actions that don’t align with the person you’d like to be. But it’s an important first step to self-improvement. 

Although it’s hard work, the self-awareness you gain through connecting with your personal values will encourage you to stay true to yourself, which will help you make better decisions, invest in your personal development, and strengthen positive relationships. Plus, the hard internal work can make you more confident, creative, and in control of your emotions.

How do personal values affect your professional life?

Your personal values aren’t limited to your personal life. Let’s say one of your values is loyalty. This could impact your dependability at work and make you a reliable, trustworthy employee.

Being a loyal employee will help you move forward on your career path. Your coworkers may turn to you for leadership advice, and your manager might recommend you for promotions. 

Or, you could value honesty more than anything else. This could lead you to be a team player that values constructive criticism, collaboration, and integrity. That’s a trait your coworkers will recognize and appreciate, as it contributes positively to the team. 

Think about it this way: how could valuing confidence, determination, and perseverance affect your professional life? Your personal values influence who you are, so naturally, they shape the kind of employee or leader you are.

8 benefits of personal values

Personal values touch every aspect of your life. Besides improving your self-awareness and relationships, here are eight ways prioritizing your values can benefit your daily life:

1. Boosts your confidence
2. Provides you with a vision that informs long-term goals
3. Creates a greater sense of purpose in your career goals and ambitions
4. Helps you manage stress by focusing on what’s important in life
5. Guides your decision-making with a sense of ethics, self-respect, and integrity 
6. Informs a leadership style guided by treating others how you’d like to be treated
7. Motivates you to be resilient during moments of conflict or great challenges
8. Makes you feel more satisfied with the choices that are in alignment with your moral values

10 examples of personal values

You might not know what values are important to you yet. That’s okay. It can take time to understand the meaning of personal values and what yours are. 

You might create an exhaustive list of values or just a few ideas, and you could rank them according to their importance. However you choose to define your personal values, the most important thing is to live by them. 

Here are 10 personal values examples you can use to create your list: 

1. Family
2. Courage
3. Creativity
4. Professional achievements
5. Kindness
6. Independence
7. Health
8. Honesty
9. Loyalty
10. Determination

How to find your personal values: 6 tips

You can choose your values intentionally, or they may also unconsciously develop as a result of your upbringing or culture. But even if you know how personal values are formed, it’ll likely still take some work to identify the values that guide your life. 

Here are six tips to help you find your values:

1. Get to know yourself better by going on a journey of self-discovery
2. Identify your short and long-term goals and the big priorities that connect them
3. Limit influences (friends, family, coworkers, obligations) that try to dictate your personal values
4. Reflect on times when you were the most at ease, and your well-being was at its best
5. Think back to life experiences that felt like something was missing in your life, like teamwork, independence, or honesty
6. Brainstorm a personal vision statement for your future and identify any core values

The importance of adapting your values

Life isn’t static — and neither are your values. At any time, life might throw a new challenge your way. A job, a growing family, or the end of a toxic relationship are all opportunities to self-reflect. And as you adapt to the changes, your values grow and shift with them.

Your values might move around in priority, too. Maybe you used to think a work-life balance was an optional job benefit. After having a child, it may become a non-negotiable priority. It’s important to adapt your values and set goals that reflect your current situation.

Otherwise, a demanding job that doesn’t give you room for your family values may leave you feeling burned out, resentful, or unmotivated. 

Making a habit of checking in and re-evaluating your personal values is a great way to make sure you strive for personal growth, respect your needs, and aren’t controlled by limiting beliefs. 

Moving forward

Values come in all shapes, sizes, and levels of importance. Finding your values takes sustained effort. They aren’t always as straightforward as you think. But they’re always with you, guiding your decisions and influencing your actions.

Now that you know the meaning of personal values, you can take the first step to identify yours and lead yourself to a more fulfilling life.

Committing to uncovering what you value in life will always pay off. You’ll have a greater sense of purpose, a better understanding of yourself, and be able to make decisions that help you achieve what you want in life.