As part of my mission to live more intentionally in 2025, I committed to writing a few shorter blog posts about what it is to live intentionally. For this first blog post, I want to focus on values.

Knowing one’s core values is an important piece of both living intentionally and being self-aware and mindful. Being aware of what your core values are help you with making decisions that are better aligned with your priorities or ambitions in life. It helps you be attuned to activities or actions that will be of the highest good for your own mental, physical and spiritual well-being. Living according to your values helps to ensure that you have a sense of purpose and meaning in your life, helping you to better understand who you are.

Why is it important to know your values? Let’s use the example of ‘Family’ being a primary value for someone, but their job finds them working 60+ hours a week. How will this make them feel? Likely they will be stressed, will not be as fully engaged in their work, and maybe even sad or miserable at home as they feel like they are letting their family down. But if you value family and find ways of spending more time with them, of having meaningful activities as a family, you will feel more fulfilled and complete. It’s important to know what your values are so that you can align your activities to them.

How do we identify our values? While there are a number of ways to identify your personal values, here are three activities that you can use to guide you along this process.

1) Values List

Find a list of values online (like this one, or this one, or this one…you get the idea) and either circle or note the ones that resonate with you. Divide the ones you identified into three categories – Very Important, Important, Not Important. This listing and the categorization will be purely subjective, but try to be honest with yourself and check in with how each of them makes you feel. Don’t select something because you think you should have a particular value. There is no judgment in this activity; just be honest and open to what you truly feel.

Once you’ve identified your list of Very Important values, narrow it down to the top 5-10. While you can have more than 10, it makes things harder to manage internally if you are trying to put emphasis on that many different values at the same time. Then, try to find ways that you can incorporate these values into your life and routine on a regular basis.

2) Happy or Proud Moments

Look back on your life (both from a personal and professional standpoint) and identify moments when you were happiest or proudest. For each of these moments, ask yourself the following questions:

• What were you doing?
• Who was with you?
• Why were you happy/proud in this moment?

Use these questions and the situations identified to try to find key values that were present in each of the moments. See if you can find any common trends or key words/moments in your examples as these might help you identify your core values.

3) Your Ideal Life

With a journal or some blank paper in hand, find a quiet spot and put yourself into a good mindset. Maybe that means making yourself a tea or coffee, spending a few minutes meditating or lighting candles or incense – whatever works for you. Now imagine yourself in 5-10 years, living your ideal life. Answer the following questions in your journal:

• Describe your day from morning to night. What are you doing?
• Who are you with?
• Where are you?

Take the time to really imagine that ideal life and try to be as detailed as possible in your writing. Don’t limit yourself when you are writing here – just let the ideas flow out onto paper; this is called free writing. Don’t question what you are imagining. Let your inner-self express itself fully. Once you’ve finished writing your ideal life, read over what you’ve written and identify any key words or images that strike you as important. Why are the activities you described important to you? What do you wish you had more of (or less of) in your life to make it closer to that ideal day you outlined? Use these identifiers as guides to finding your list of core values.

Next Steps

Now that you’ve identified your top values, it’s time to rank them by priority. Make a list of the priority order for your values. Next, look to see where you are finding these values in your life today. Ask yourself how you can find ways to incorporate these values more and more into your routine. Are there any activities or actions that you can do that will satisfy one of your values? Try to find a way to tap into each of your values at least once per week, but ideally more regularly. Want to be ambitious? Challenge yourself to check off each of the values daily.

One thing to note is that your list of core values will likely change over the course of your lifetime. While some will always remain in your top 5-10, you may see new ones move up the list that were not a priority in the past. Or you may find yourself moving a particular value down the list as you’ve fully embodied it and have it incorporated into your very being.

I’ll use myself as an example. When I first did this activity a few years ago, my list of core values was as follows:

1. Humour
2. Creativity
3. Service
4. Simplicity
5. Pleasure

A few years later, I redid the exercise and while these five were still present, the order had changed and a new one had added itself to the list.

1. Creativity
2. Humour
3. Freedom
4. Simplicity
5. Service
6. Pleasure

Over the course of those couple of years in between doing the exercise, the need for my space and freedom had become more predominant. I was craving that feeling in my life, so I prioritized that value and found ways to incorporate it regularly.

It’s time to redo this examination of my values. At a quick scan, I know that Freedom will likely be at, or near, the top of my values list currently. Service will also have moved up. Over the next few days, I will make the time to identify my current list of core values and make an effort to introduce them into my routine. I hope you will find the time to do the same.

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Your Turn!

Have you ever taken the time to consider what your personal values are? Feel free to share your thoughts on these exercises or to share your values. I’d love to hear how you plan to integrate your values into your life.

PS: I guess this wasn’t really a shorter blog post. My bad!