4 Ways to Figure Out Your Values

Your values are things you judge as being important in your life. Your values guide your decision-making and shape how you see the world.

Being in a career that doesn’t align with your values is an immediate recipe for career dissatisfaction. When my clients are unhappy at work, the first thing I recommend is that they audit the alignment between their role/organization and their values.

In this article, I share with you 4 ways for you to figure out your values.

4 Ways to Figure Your Values

Oftentimes, you are unhappy at work because there’s a misalignment in one of three common areas: values, interest, and skill. Values are the most common misalignments that cause us to feel unfulfilled at work. Your values are unique and personal to you, and they can be anything. From money to autonomy or work decisions to flexibility.

Values are our principles: things that we judge in life as being important, they give life meaning and inspire you to keep going when the going gets tough.

Without fail, being in a career that doesn’t align with your values leads to dissatisfaction. Being in an unfulfilling career means that you are likely living out of alignment with important beliefs.

There are just no two ways about it. Here’s the thing: if you are unclear about your values, it’s going to be hard to find out why you’re miserable in your career.

If you are unclear about your values, it's going to be hard to find out why you're miserable in your career. Share on X

So let’s jump into the 4 ways to figure out your values.

Way #1: Look for a List of Values Online that You Can Review.

First, one way to figure out your values is to review an existing list of values. All you have to do is go on Google and search for:

Work values,
Types of values,
… Or list of values!

When you find a relevant list, review the results carefully, and find the values that are relevant to you. As you do that, pick out the ones that make you think, “Oh yeah, I think that’s pretty important to me”. At that point, you are slowly beginning to figure out what you value.

If something’s not clear, don’t hesitate to start all over again. Go on Google, and try to search again. But this time, try to find out how some of the terms in the work values are defined, so you can have a clearer definition of what the options are. This can help you better clarify your values.

Starting with a simple search of values that already exist is a good way to figure out your values and what matters to you. While reading the list, reflect on your current unfulfilling career, which of the values on the list are currently being violated? If it feels like a value is being violated, it’s likely important to you.

For example, let’s say you see “recognition” on a list and you find yourself thinking “I never get recognized at work“, that might be a sign. It wouldn’t bug you if recognition wasn’t important to you.

However, don’t overthink it, just begin reading a list, trust your intuition and determine which of the values on the list stand out to you.

Way #2: Figure Out What’s Important to Your Role Models.

Second, another way to figure out your values is to reflect on three people you look up to. These people can be anyone you appreciate, think is interesting, or whose lives you aspire to have.

Then ask yourself: what values do those people embody or live out?

You see, our role models are a mirror for who we want to be. We admire someone because some aspect of their lives is something that we want for our lives or we aspire to have characteristics similar to theirs.

What you need to do is reflect on who your role models are and research them. You can do a Google search about their work, or watch and listen to some of their interviews, seminars, panel discussions, podcasts, and so on. It really depends on what your role models do.

While you’re researching them and beginning to get a glimpse of what values they embody, my advice is that you write those values down. Trust me, you can’t do it all in your head!

As you begin writing their values down, you’ll start to get some clues about what you hold as important in your life and what you value.

Way #3: Reflect on Your Own Life.

What else was happening in my life? How was I doing at work?
Did I do something in my personal life that I considered to be relevant? What was it?
What did my spiritual life, finances, and relationships look like?

When you pause and reflect on times when you have been happy and fulfilled, you will start to get an inkling into what you value. You were happy in those moments because something was going right. Because you were living in alignment with the things that are important to you.

When you pause and reflect on times when you have been happy, you will start to get an inkling of what you value. Share on X

Once you have reflected on that, you might now realize that the reason why you’re unhappy is that you’re living out of alignment! The next thing for you to do is to start reflecting again. Begin brainstorming about what you could do to get back in alignment.

After reflecting and writing, you will start to have a sense of what you value! You can also begin finding ways to either emulate or bring back those happy moments.

Another advantage of having a list is that you have something to look out for in your next career role.

Way #4: Work With a Career Professional.

Fourth, the final way you can figure out your values is to work with a career counselor, coach, or professional. Working with a career coach can supercharge your career results like crazy. Because let’s face it, some things really shouldn’t be DIY’d and your career is one of those.⁠

Working with a career counselor or coach like myself who’s a good fit for you is one of the quickest ways to figure out your work values!

Just like you’re an expert in your industry, we are an expert in ours!

We’re trained to ask questions about your career story and experiences. The point of our work is to literally help you grow your career and realize what matters to you – your values.

Another reason to work with a career coach is that we are already familiar with the challenges that people face while working in their careers. Our experience and training allow us to know what areas of your life to ask about. This will help you start to clarify your values and how you can embody them in work.

Additionally, most career counselors or career coaches have access to training, inventories, or assessments. Those sources can help you or guide you to figuring out your work values quite fast.

Overall, working with professional or career professionals will really help you get clear about your work values swiftly!