1. What is the Core Values Finder?

The Core Values Finder is a three-phase interactive tool that guides you through a structured process of discovering your five most fundamental personal values — the principles that, whether you are consciously aware of them or not, already guide your most important decisions and relationships.

Unlike a simple checklist, this tool uses a card-sort method: you begin by selecting all values that resonate, then progressively narrow to 10, then to 5. This narrowing process reveals what truly matters most — not just what sounds appealing in the abstract.

Why values matterWhen your life is aligned with your values, it feels purposeful and coherent — even during difficulty. When your life is misaligned with your values, it often produces a vague but persistent sense of wrongness — a feeling that something is off, that you are living someone else’s life, or that no achievement ever quite satisfies. Knowing your values gives you a compass.

2. How the tool works

Phase 1 — Open selection

You are shown all 30 values and asked to select any that genuinely resonate. Do not filter by what sounds impressive or what you think you should value — choose what actually moves you, what actually matters in the decisions you have made, what you would feel genuinely bereft without.

Phase 2 — Narrow to 10

From your initial selection, you must now keep only 10. This is where the real work begins. You will find yourself weighing values against each other — which matters more, creativity or security? freedom or family? This tension is not a problem to solve; it is a revelation of what you truly value most.

Phase 3 — Your top 5

From your 10, choose your 5 core values. These are not aspirations — they are descriptions of what already matters most to you. If you find yourself changing your mind repeatedly, try asking: ‘Which of these, if completely absent from my life, would leave me feeling most hollow?’

3. Working with your core values

Use them as a decision compass

When facing a difficult decision — a career change, a relationship question, a major commitment — lay your top 5 values alongside it. Ask: ‘Which option best honours most of my core values?’ This does not always give a clear answer, but it often cuts through confusion very quickly.

Use them to understand your pain

Much of the pain people experience in their lives comes from living in consistent violation of their values — working in a job that requires dishonesty when integrity is your core value; staying in a relationship that prevents growth when growth is fundamental to you. When you know your values, you can often identify the source of chronic dissatisfaction.

Use them to evaluate relationships

Relationships that consistently require you to betray your core values will always be draining — regardless of how much you care for the person. Not because the relationship is wrong, but because the values misalignment creates a constant low-level cost. Understanding this can be both clarifying and compassionate.

Review them annually

Values are not permanently fixed. They evolve as you do — particularly after major life events (loss, parenthood, career change, spiritual shift). Revisiting this exercise once a year is a simple, powerful practice for staying conscious of who you are becoming.

4. The 30 values — a reference guide

Below is a brief description of each value in the tool, to help you understand them more fully as you work with your results.

• Authenticity — Being real, honest, and true to yourself; not performing for others
• Compassion — Genuine care for the suffering of others; the capacity to be moved by pain
• Courage — Acting despite fear; the willingness to risk for what matters
• Creativity — Expressing yourself through original thought, art, or new ideas
• Family — Deep bonds with those connected to you by love, blood, or choice
• Freedom — Living on your own terms; autonomy over your time, choices, and identity
• Forgiveness — The capacity to release resentment and choose peace
• Gratitude — Actively noticing and appreciating the good in your life
• Growth — Continuous learning and becoming; the drive toward your potential
• Honesty — Truth-telling and living with integrity to your own experience
• Humility — Knowing your limits; remaining open to being wrong
• Inner peace — Stillness, calm, and freedom from inner war
• Integrity — Aligning your actions with your stated beliefs, consistently
• Justice — Fairness and the courage to stand against what is wrong
• Kindness — Warmth and generosity extended freely, without transaction
• Love — Deep connection and unconditional acceptance
• Loyalty — Faithfulness to the people and causes you have committed to
• Mindfulness — Full presence in your body, your senses, your moment
• Openness — Curiosity and receptivity to new ideas and experiences
• Patience — Holding space without forcing; with others and with yourself
• Purpose — A sense of meaning and direction beyond the immediate
• Resilience — The capacity to return from difficulty with more than you left with
• Responsibility — Owning your choices and their impact on others
• Service — Giving to something beyond yourself without expectation
• Simplicity — Clarity, reduced excess, freedom from unnecessary noise
• Spirituality — Connection to something greater than the individual self
• Trust — Safety and reliability, in yourself and in others
• Vulnerability — The courage to be seen; to risk openness
• Wisdom — Drawing on experience and reflection to guide your choices
• Wonder — Staying curious and moved by the mystery of existence