Find Your Values – Core Values List

You’ve probably spent most of your life living by everyone else’s priorities – kids, partners, parents, work, the dog, the fish. At some point, usually around the “is this it?” years, you realise you’ve never actually written down what you VALUE now.

This list is a starting point. It’s adapted from James Clear’s work in Atomic Habits, and it’s a useful way to check: “Is the life I’m living anywhere near the life I say I care about?”

Use it alongside Your SPACE Prescription and A Grown Up’s Gap Year as you sketch out what this next decade could look like for you.

How to use this list

• Circle or highlight your top ten. Don’t overthink it – trust your first reaction.
  
• Narrow to five. These are the values you want this next act of life to be built around.
  
• Sense-check your calendar. Look at last week. Does your time even vaguely reflect these five? If not, that’s useful information – not a reason to beat yourself up.
  

Choose one value to protect more fiercely. It might be Freedom, Health, Adventure, Creativity, Security – whatever feels most urgent. That value will become a lens for your next move.

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LISTENING TO WISDOM

Chatting to my fit and engaged 83-year-old Papa, I asked for his wellbeing mantra – I received the following note:

Dear Eldest Daughter,

Not everything in my life has gone according to plan, but what I do know is a guardrail of sorts helps me feel consistently joyful – even when the road gets bumpy.

Key factors contributing to a joyful demeanour:

Living with a trusted life partner and experiencing love

• Regular communication with family
• A small circle of true friends
• Active outdoors lifestyle, daily yoga, and meditation practice
• Healthy eating habits
• Understanding that nothing is more certain than change
• Lifelong learning, awareness of current and global affairs
• Love of reading
• Social and community contacts, projects, and supporting
  selected charities
• Passion for ethical, moral, and sustainable values
• Love of nature and the planet
• Practising a creative hobby, writing, gardening

& have some FUN. EVERYDAY.

Isn’t this beautiful? Perfect, actually.

What next?

• If you’ve completed Your SPACE Prescription, revisit your results with these five values in mind. What needs to shift so your calendar and your contribution better match what matters to you now?
  
• If you’re still thinking, “Where do I even begin?”, my book A Grown Up’s Gap Year and A Grown Up’s Gap Year – The Podcast walk you through how I did this in my own full, imperfect, real life.
  

This isn’t about perfect choices. It’s about making sure the next chapter of your life actually belongs to you.