What are your personal values, and why do they matter? Psychologist and writer Nick Wignall put it best:

Clarifying personal values often leads to many benefits, including:

• Feeling more confident
• Improving relationships
• Reducing procrastination
• Worrying less
• Finding more joy in life
• Sticking to goals

But how do you identify and clarify your personal values? Here are seven practical exercises to help you get to know your values better.

1. Flip your frustrations

Often we end up avoiding our frustrations because they are... well... frustrating! But here's the thing: frustrations often contain useful information.

If you're having trouble identifying your personal values, try flipping your frustrations.

• Make a list of 10-20 things that frequently frustrate you in your life.
• For each frustration, ask yourself: What goal am I being thwarted from achieving? and then write that down.
• Finally, for each goal, ask yourself: What might this tell me about my values?

And remember... a personal value doesn't have to be valuable to other people — just you!

The reason many people struggle to identify their values is that they don’t think they’re valid or important enough. Or they think it’s silly that they get so frustrated or worked up about something “small” or “unimportant.”

Instead, try respecting those “little” preferences and see what they can tell you about getting to know your values.

2. Write down your bucket list

Chances are you've heard about the bucket list. It's a list of things you want to do before you die:

• Write a novel
• Travel the world
• Speak French fluently
• Play an instrument
• Start my own business
• Etc.

But have you set aside the time to write out your Bucket List? Surprisingly few people have. Put on a timer and create your Bucket List. Don't censor yourself. Put down all your goals on a piece of paper. Can you spot any themes or patterns that reveal something about your personal values?

3. Ask yourself the Peter Thiel Question

A few years ago, I read Peter Thiel's book Zero to One. Peter Thiel opens his first chapter saying this:

What a fascinating question! What's so useful about this question is that it encourages you to separate between personal values and inherited values.

What's an inherited value? It's a value that's been passed on to you from your parents, teachers, or society at large. Being polite, for example. Inherited values aren't wrong per se, but it's useful to reflect on them.

Most — if not all — values are inherited in some way. But that doesn't mean we need to adopt them, or that we can't challenge them.

The Peter Thiel question lends itself to a lot of personal reflection, and it's one you won't answer straight away. Give it some careful thought. See what it can reveal about your personal values.

4. Create a personal mission statement

The basic idea behind a personal mission statement is this: Sketch out a compelling picture of your best self.

In other words, your personal mission statement is a manifesto for the kind of person you aspire to be. It highlights your values, roles, and personal goals.

While the Bucket List was a brainstorm of things you wanted to do, the Personal Mission Statement is about creating a specific vision for how you want to be.

And similar to the Bucket List, it can help you discover patterns and themes that help you know your values. There are lots of different ways you can approach this, but here are a few tips to help you get started:

What qualities in yourself do you want to cultivate? Be more patient with my kids. Become more accepting of others' views. Etc.

What habits do you want to build? Exercise regularly. Do an annual retreat. Stick to one serving of food at dinner. Floss every night. Make time to call up old friends at least once a month. Etc.

How do you hope other people would describe you when you’re not around? Kind. Helpful. Thoughtful. Decisive. Cheerful. Brutally honest. Compassionate. Gentle. Funny. Supportive. Etc.

In the story of your life, what are the main obstacles to overcome? My habit of negative self-talk. Being afraid to speak my mind. Pushing away my romantic interests when the relationship starts to get deeper and more emotionally intimate. Etc.

Who are your personal heroes? Mrs Elmfors, my 7th-grade science teacher, because she always saw the best in people. Grandma Maj because she always stood up for what she believed in. Etc.

Note: Don’t overthink this or get perfectionistic about it. This isn't an assignment for school or something you need to show to your client or boss. This exercise is for you.

5. Dig Deeper on Your Values with the 5 Whys

The 5 Whys is an old technique used by coaches, therapists, analysts, and many other professionals to get at the root cause of something.

The basic idea is that our explanations for things tend to be rather superficial, which means we often have to push beyond the superficial explanation to get at the real one. We can apply this process to our values because we often have pretty superficial answers to what our personal values are and why they matter.

Here’s an example:

What’s one of your most important personal values? Being healthy.

Why is being healthy so important to you? Because my doctor says I need to be healthier.

Why do you think you need to be healthier? Because I don’t want to die young like my grandpa.

Why don’t you want to die young like your grandpa? Because he missed out on so much of life that he could’ve experienced?

Why is experiencing as much of life as possible so important to you? I want to spend as much quality time with the people I love as possible.

Why is spending time with the people you love so important? Gosh, I don’t know… I guess I just love the feeling of having a good conversation with my son or joking around about the NBA with my best friend.

There’s nothing wrong per se with being healthy as a value. But if you think about it, it’s a little vague. And one of the downsides to vague values is that they’re not very motivating.

Exercise more regularly is almost always the #1 New Year’s resolution people make. And yet… Very few people follow through. Why? I don’t think it’s because they don’t value being healthy. I think it’s because they haven’t clarified that value enough.

Being healthy isn’t going to exert enough motivating energy to get you off your warm cosy bed to go run in the cold. But imagining 30+ more years of wonderful conversations with your son or good times with your buddies watching basketball just might do the trick.

So, once you’ve identified some core personal values, you can get to know your values even better—and clarify them—by asking them 5 whys and trying to drill down to more specific reasons for why those things are valuable to you.

6. Describe the 3 happiest days of your life

At this point, you're catching on that the key idea when it comes to discovering your personal values is looking for patterns. Because the truth is you likely already have many values —at least in a basic form. We just need to see them more clearly and then clarify them a little bit.

One valuable source of ideas for values is your past —specifically, the best times of your past.

Think about the three happiest days of your life. Look through old photo albums, speak to someone who was there to get their perspective, or write the day as a story. You'd be surprised at how much your three best days can teach you about your personal values.

7. Ask a friend

The final exercise is to ask a friend for help to discover and clarify your values. Here's a script you can use:

Quick note: depending on the person, they may be able to give you a good, high-quality answer off the top of their head. But some people may likely need to think about it for a day or so. If the person you ask seems like they’re struggling to answer, give them the out of taking a few days to think about it and let them know you’ll follow up later.

A final thought

Personal values are the guiding principles that help you navigate your life well, especially when times are tough.

When you know your values and are clear about them, it becomes easier to make good decisions in the face of uncertainty, confusion, or difficult emotions like fear or frustration.

So whatever your particular goals or challenges are, make a little time to reflect on your personal values and get specific with them.

The sense of purpose, clarity, and motivation that comes from knowing your values well is well worth the effort.

Reflecting on your personal values is more fun if we do it together. If you want to share your values, please reply to this email. I read and respond to everyone. Or if you just want to say hi and tell me what you're up to, I'd appreciate that as well.

Hope you're well. Stay safe, and have a great week!

Cheers,
Olle

PS. If you'd like to see a great example of someone applying these exercises to his own life, check out this article by Nick Costelloe.
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​PPS. If you want more inspiration on choosing your personal values for the year, check out: My Three Words for 2022.