Live Your Values and Use Them

Find out what characteristics or ways of behaving makes you feel good. Answer the following questions:

• What's important to you in life?
• If you could have any career, without worrying about money or other practical constraints, what would you do?
• When you’re reading news stories, what sort of story or behaviour tends to inspire you?
• What type of story or behaviour makes you angry?
• What do you want to change about the world or about yourself?
• What are you most proud of?
• When were you the happiest?

Once you’ve come up with a list, it's important to prioritise your values.

It can help you get even closer to defining what’s important to you. Prioritising helps you to ensure that you’re spending them on the most important things that'll have the biggest payoff in your life.

Your personal values aren't set in stone. While some of your core values will probably stay the same throughout your life, others may change as your life circumstances change or simply as you get older and start to have a different view of what’s important.

It’s worth checking in yearly to see if your values have changed.

Personal values are the things that are important to us, the characteristics and behaviours that motivate us and guide our decisions. For example honesty or kindness.

Values matter because you’re likely to feel better if you’re living according to your values and to feel worse if you don’t. This applies both to day-to-day decisions and to larger life choices.