From business coaches to relationship experts to branding coaches, everyone talks about how important it is to know what your values are.

And they have a point. A lot of life is exponentially easier when we’re clear about what is and isn’t important to us.

But they often skip over how to figure out exactly what your values are. In my experience it’s much easier to point to something happening and say that it does or doesn’t align with what you value, than it is to come up with a list from scratch of exactly what your values are.

If that’s you as well, here’s an exercise to concretely figure out what you value.

1. Initial brain dump
   Get a pen and paper (or digital equivalent). Go through this list of values and copy down every one that resonates with you in some way. Don’t overthink it. No wrong answers, write all the ones you like the sound of. If some of them make you think “erm surely everyone values that”—that’s a great sign that that’s one of your strong values! Also, if there’s one you hope to see on the list but it’s not there, write it anyway
2. Group them
   A lot of things you’ve written down will be related to each other. So now take your list and group related words together. If you have more than 5 groups, get rid of the least important ones so you end up with 5
3. Remove duplicates
   If there’s one word that sums up the whole group, cross out the rest. If not, at least cross out any that are adequately summed up by the rest of the group

That’s it—those 5 words (or groups of words) are your core values.

4. (Pro level!) Paragraphs
   For each group, write a paragraph that explains what those values mean to you. Easiest way is to pretend you're explaining the values to a young relative who doesn't know what the words mean

If you’re stuck on step 4 check my guide to writer’s block, too.

After you’re done I’d love to see it if you’d like to share. I’d love to share mine with you too.

(Adapted from similar exercises at Taproot and John Carroll University)