Core values

About this tool

Core values: what it is and how to use it

Your core values are the few things you most want your choices to follow, put in your own words. This free core values finder has you pick up to 10 from a list of plain words, narrow them to 5, then rank your top 3 and write what each means to you in practice. It runs in your browser and keeps your picks on your device.

Where the idea comes from, and what the research looked at

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989), Stephen Covey's second habit is to begin with the end in mind, and the tool FranklinCovey points to for it is a personal mission statement, which it compares to "writing our own personal constitution".

Psychologists have studied a related exercise under the name self-affirmation. Cohen and Sherman write that these exercises "typically have people write about core personal values". In many experiments, writing briefly about a value made hard messages a little easier to accept; a large replication in schools found no effect on school results.

This tool is a reflection exercise, not one of those experiments, and the list of words is ours; any value you add counts just as much. Our guide to taking criticism without getting defensive looks at the self-affirmation studies more closely.

How to use it

1. Pick up to 10 values that feel most like you. Go with your first reaction, and type in your own word if one is missing.
2. Narrow them to the five you would keep if you could keep only five.
3. Put the five in order, with the one that matters most at the top.
4. For your top three, write a line on what each means to you in practice.
5. Copy or print the result. Doing it again in a few months shows what has moved.

An example

Say you end up with Family, Honesty, Learning, Health and Calm, and Honesty comes first. Next to it you might write: "I say when I don't know something, at work and at home." A line like that is easier to act on than the word on its own.