Personal Values: A List and a Way to Find Yours
Personal values explained with Schwartz's ten basic values, a core values list, a 30-minute exercise to find your top five, and how to use them at work.
Personal values are the goals that matter most to you and steer your choices: security, independence, achievement, helping others, and so on. The psychologist Shalom Schwartz groups them into ten basic values found across cultures. To find yours, look at evidence from your life: the moments you felt proud or engaged, and the moments you felt angry or empty. The values that keep showing up are your core values. Keep three to five, rank them, and use them to judge jobs, offers and career changes.
I work as a career coach at International Motivation Training Deutschland (IMT), an approved provider, in programmes funded by the Jobcenter and the Federal Employment Agency. Since 2022 I have coached more than 2,000 adults in Germany's career and integration programmes, most of them starting over in a new country. In the programme I coach in, the final session brings values, inner and outer motivation and goals together. The exercise below lets you work through values on your own, in about 30 minutes.
Schwartz's ten basic values: a core values list
Shalom Schwartz's theory, summarised in his 2012 overview (opens in a new tab), "identifies ten basic personal values that are recognized across cultures". Each value is defined by the goal behind it:
| Value | Defining goal (Schwartz) | Related words for your list |
|---|---|---|
| Self-direction | Independent thought and action: choosing, creating, exploring | Freedom, curiosity, creativity, autonomy |
| Stimulation | Excitement, novelty and challenge in life | Variety, adventure, risk |
| Hedonism | Pleasure for oneself | Enjoyment, fun, comfort |
| Achievement | Personal success through showing competence | Ambition, success, mastery |
| Power | Social status and prestige, control over people and resources | Influence, wealth, recognition |
| Security | Safety, harmony and stability of society, relationships and self | Stability, order, health |
| Conformity | Restraint of actions that could upset or harm others or break norms | Politeness, self-discipline, reliability |
| Tradition | Respect for the customs and ideas of your culture or religion | Faith, heritage, modesty |
| Benevolence | The welfare of people close to you | Loyalty, honesty, helpfulness, friendship |
| Universalism | Understanding, tolerance and protection for all people and nature | Fairness, equality, sustainability |
Why values pull against each other
Schwartz arranges the ten values in a circle. Neighbours fit together. Opposites compete:
- Openness to change (self-direction, stimulation) pulls against conservation (security, conformity, tradition).
- Self-enhancement (power, achievement) pulls against self-transcendence (universalism, benevolence).
This explains many career dilemmas. A secure civil service job serves security and works against stimulation. Starting your own business serves self-direction and costs security. Neither choice is wrong. The question is which value you rank higher right now.
Inner and outer motivation
Values connect to the two kinds of motivation described by Richard Ryan and Edward Deci in a 2000 paper (opens in a new tab). Intrinsic motivation means "doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable". Extrinsic motivation means "doing something because it leads to a separable outcome", such as pay or a title.
Their key point: extrinsic motivation can feel like pressure from outside or like your own choice. It depends on whether you have taken the reason on board. Learning German because the Jobcenter requires it feels different from learning German because you value talking to your patients in their language. The task is the same. The value behind it changes how long you keep going.
How to find your personal values: a 30-minute exercise
Step 1: collect evidence (10 minutes)
Write down three moments from your working life when you felt proud or fully engaged. Then three moments when you felt angry, frustrated or empty. Be concrete: what happened, who was there, what you did.
Step 2: name the values (10 minutes)
For each high moment, ask: which value was met? For each low moment: which value was violated? Use the table above for words. A manager taking credit for your work violates achievement. Being trusted to plan a project on your own meets self-direction.
Step 3: count and cut (5 minutes)
Count how often each value appears. Keep the top five. If two are tied, ask: if I could only keep one for the next two years, which one?
Step 4: rank and write (5 minutes)
Rank your five and write one sentence for each in your own words. "Security" becomes "I need to know my income for the next year." Your own words make the value usable.
Using your values to choose a job
- Turn values into questions. Independence: "How much do I decide on my own in this role?" Benevolence: "Who does my work help?"
- Score each offer. For every top-five value, rate the job 1 to 5. A low score on your number one value is a red flag, even with good pay.
- Read job ads for value words. "Structured processes" points to security and conformity. "Fast-moving environment" points to stimulation.
- Ask in the interview. "What does a good week look like in this role?" tells you more about values than any company values page.
Values also shape what you need from a job at a given moment, which I cover in Maslow's hierarchy of needs at work.
When your values change
Your ranking can shift after big events: a move abroad, a child, an illness, a lost job. Someone who ranked stimulation first at 25 may rank security first after starting over in a new country. Redo the exercise after any big change, and once a year anyway.
If your values tell you the current path is wrong but you don't know the next one, read how to change careers and SMART goals for a career change. For one-to-one work on direction, see career change coaching.
Questions and answers
What are personal values?
Personal values are the goals that matter most to you and guide your choices, such as security, independence, achievement or helping others. The psychologist Shalom Schwartz describes ten basic values recognised across cultures, each defined by the goal it serves.
What are examples of core values?
Using Schwartz's ten groups: independence and curiosity (self-direction), variety and challenge (stimulation), enjoyment (hedonism), success and competence (achievement), status and influence (power), stability and safety (security), politeness and self-discipline (conformity), respect for tradition (tradition), loyalty and helpfulness (benevolence), fairness and care for nature (universalism).
How do I find my personal values?
Start from evidence in your own life. Write down three moments when you felt proud or fully engaged and three when you felt angry or empty. Mark which values were met or violated in each. The values that show up most often, in both lists, are your core values.
How many core values should I have?
Three to five. With more, you can't use them to decide anything. Rank them, because real choices force you to trade one value against another.
How do personal values help with a career change?
They explain why a job feels wrong even when the pay is fine, and they give you a filter for the next one. If your top value is independence, a role with tight control is likely to drain you, whatever the title.