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Article • 9 min read

What Are Your Values?

Deciding what's important in life and work

JH
Written by Jonathan Hancock
CM
Reviewed by Catriona MacLeod
Access the essential membership for Modern Managers

Key Takeaways on Personal Values

  • Your values help guide everyday choices at work: Knowing what matters most to you—like fairness, growth, or collaboration—can help you make decisions that feel right and reduce stress or uncertainty.
  • Look back on meaningful moments to reveal what drives you: Reflecting on times when you felt proud, fulfilled, or truly happy at work can help you identify the values that make your job feel worthwhile.
  • Prioritizing your values supports better decision-making: When you're faced with competing demands or tough choices, knowing which values are most important helps you stay true to yourself and feel confident in your actions.
  • Living by your values builds self-respect and resilience: Staying aligned with your values helps you feel more authentic and grounded—even when things get challenging. It’s also worth revisiting your values over time, especially after big changes.

Your values are the things that you believe are important in the way you live and work. They (should) determine your priorities, and they're probably the measures you use to tell if your life is turning out the way you want it to.

When the things that you do and the way you behave match your values, life is usually good – you're satisfied and content. But when these don't align with your personal values, that's when things feel wrong. This can be a real source of unhappiness.

This is why making a conscious effort to identify your values is so important.

So, in this article and in the video, below, we're going to take a look at how you can identify your personal values.

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