Understanding Your Core Values

Do you ever think ‘I wish I could be more like someone else?’ Or perhaps that ‘I’m glad I’m not like that person!’

Well, this next activity is designed to help you think quickly about your core values – the principles that you live to. Do you, for instance, think that we all need to be more socially responsible? Or perhaps you look up to people with an entrepreneurial nature?

Identify your heroes and villains

Write two columns on a sheet of paper. Write at the top of one column ‘heroes and heroines’. The other column is for ‘villains’.

Under the first column, write down a list of people that you admire – they could be living or dead, or even fictional. It could be famous business figures, film stars, political activists in the news or just people you’ve worked with.

Then, for each person, ask yourself:

• Why do you have such respect for these people?
• What attributes or traits do they have?
• In turn, what does that say about what you value?

And then do the opposite for the villains:

• What is it about these people that makes you scorn them?
• What implications does that have for your values?