Identify Your Unique Values with Our FREE Core Values Quiz below.
Are You Looking to Live a More Authentic Life That is Filled With Purpose?
(For Curious Individuals)
Take the First Step Towards Reducing Stress, Increasing Your Well-being, and Creating a Thriving Culture around You. Identify Your Unique Values with Our FREE Core Values Quiz Self-Assessment.
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MaryBeth's wisdom, intuitive gifts and proven practices have changed my life. She has guided me on how to take on this life's journey, particularly in times of stress, and embrace what once seemed impossible."
- Lisa Schroeder, President, The Pittsburgh Foundation
IN THIS FREE CORE VALUES QUIZ SELF-ASSESSMENT, YOU WILL LEARN:
What Your Core Values Are
These are the values that drive you. The aspects of yourself that motivate you toward or away from different things.
What Your Aspirational Values Are
These are the values that you wish drove you. These describe what you aspire to become.
What Your Values Are
These are the values that describe you but you are not driven by them.
Which Values Don’t Resonate With You
These are the values that simply aren’t things that resonate with you personally and that’s OK.
When you know, own, and live your values, everyday is filled with purpose."
~ MaryBeth Hyland, Founder + Chief Visionary, SparkVision
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WHAT ACTUAL PEOPLE HAVE TO SAY ABOUT KNOWING THEIR VALUES
“It's really important for me to know what matters to me. So that when I go into partnerships with either clients or co-creators, that I'm really clear if we're going to be a good match for each other. So that was really big for me, and I thought a lot about values. And if I ever have a question about whether or not something is a good fit for me. I always have those values to go back to.”
~ Adair Cates,
CEO, First Lead You
“I'm realizing now that the way that I relate to my values is how I build relationships, not just intimate ones, but at work with business partners, and the like. It also is allowed me to have a greater level of empathy. For humanity at large, I am a lover of the human experience. And so recognizing what my core values are, and realizing how similar we all are also able to now kind of pinpoint what other people's values are. And that has been really helpful, especially in the climate in which that we live in.”
~ Chenire Harrell-Carter,
CEO, Memory Maker Inc.
“This was incredibly enlightening to me in the sense that I have these core values and yet when I look at my calendar on my phone, some of them weren't exactly lining up and I am really looking forward to going forward and making those changes so that my values are reflected in my everyday life. And I just recommend it to anyone who wants to live out their purpose.”
~ Anna Snow,
Community Manager, Yelp
“It’s a great opportunity to just really delve a little bit deeper into yourself and be more self-aware of who you are. It allows you the opportunity to be more authentic in the world.”
~ Cory J. Anderson,
Director, Venture for America
“I knew that this disconnect that I was feeling in my business and uncertainty in where to go next and growing my business would be positively impacted by clarifying my values.”
~ Amanda Autry,
Entrepreneur
“There's something invigorating and completely life-changing when you understand what your values are.”
~ Veronica Hill,
Workplace Culture Consultant
What Are Core Values?
Core values are intrinsic motivators that represent a person’s principles or standards of behavior—one’s judgment of what is important in life. Your core values are as unique as your fingerprints. They serve as your internal compass and represent what you stand for. When you honor your values, life feels good. And when you don’t, your mental, emotional, and physical states suffer. The things that make your heart flutter and the things that make your stomach ache are often reflections of whether an experience is aligned with your values.
Happiness is impossible if you abandon your values.
Core values are not just values, but rather they are the key to unlocking the emotional intelligence that already exists within us. When using core values as their guide, people are able to tap into parts of themselves that may have been dormant for years by simply asking them to reflect on what matters most to them.
Why is Knowing Your Core Values Important?
When you know them, your core values can be the grounding force that eliminates the feelings of overwhelm so that you can serve yourself and those around you from a place of well-being and personal alignment. Whether you realize it or not, you are a walking, talking, living, loving, breathing set of values. When those values are violated you feel disconnected and stressed, when they’re activated you feel in alignment and alive! We often aren’t stressed because we’re doing too much—we’re stressed because we’re doing too little of what aligns with our values. From the experiences that make us come alive to the people who make us cringe, our values define what we stand for in life.
So when you intentionally activate your core values, incredible power, energy, and freedom become possible for you with ease and grace.
Self-awareness of our intrinsic motivators, sparked by activation of our values, enables us to name and get curious about the experiences, behaviors, and conditions that are required for a sense of personal alignment, purpose, and productivity each day.
How Do You Own Your Core Values?
There is a distinct difference between being and behaving. You can fully identify as being something but still not behave in a way that reflects that quality. For instance, you might be curious about something but not ask any questions. You could deeply care about racial equity but look the other way when you see a person of color experiencing injustice in front of you. See the difference?
You want to be clear with yourself on what expectations you have for both being and behaving in alignment with your values. Enter value promises, your co-created code of conduct. You develop these statements by asking the following questions of yourself around core values:
What are the standards and expectations around how I will behave in alignment with my core values?
What promise(s) can I make to bring that value to life personally and/or professionally?
How can others support me to keep my promise(s)?
What might be possible if you live this way?
How Do You Live Your Core Values?
Living your core values doesn’t typically happen by chance. It happens when choosing your values with integrity over and over again. If you truly want to embrace your values in your daily habits, routines, and experiences, you must be mindful of whether you’re living in alignment with them.
Enter values-based mindfulness, which we define as “honoring one’s core truth by making conscious choices that ignite a personal sense of alignment.”
Something as simple as a full body check (where your mind, gut, and heart say yes) will give you the information you need to make choices that serve you. For example, you might be having a really off day and want to understand where you’re out of alignment with yourself. Close your eyes; perhaps even put your hands on your heart. Take long, deep breaths to slow down, and simply ask yourself, “Which one of my core values can serve me now? How can I activate it with ease and grace in this moment?”
Joy doesn’t exist in the absence of our values. It’s important to know how to tune in to understand how you can bring your core values front and center into choosing your next steps. When we are honest with ourselves about what’s out of alignment with our mind, body, and spirit, as well as with our sense of well-being, we have a real chance of getting back in alignment. Values-based mindfulness works, and you have the ability to access it anytime, because just like your breath, your values are always with you.
How Your Values Connect to Your Company’s Values
Our behaviors are a reflection of our values. When we take the time to honor our core values and understand where they were born and enhanced, we start the process of not only knowing but also owning our values.
When you understand what your personal values are and where they came from, you can better understand how you are showing up in or out of alignment with the company’s core values. From that place, you can then empower yourself and ask others to hold you accountable to these core values, knowing what kind of environment you want to create with others.
Whether you feel like you’re in complete alignment with your core values or have no idea what they are, this work will serve you in knowing how you—and therefore your organization—can step up more authentically living your core values. Self-awareness of our intrinsic motivators, sparked by the activation of our core values, enables us to name and get curious about the experiences, behaviors, and conditions required for a sense of personal alignment, purpose, and productivity each day.
How do Company Core Values connect to your Company’s Vision and Mission?
A vision is the why of your company—why you’re doing the thing you do.
The mission is the what of your company—what you do every day.
And the values are the how of your company—how you accomplish your what to get to your why.
If you have a set of stated organizational values and your behaviors don’t reflect them, you do not have an aligned culture. You have an aspirational culture of pie-in-the-sky thinking versus one based on the reality of day-to-day experience.
But when your behaviors are in alignment with those company values, you create an incredible place of loyalty, commitment, engagement, pride, and enthusiasm, a place where people are going to stay, regardless of what generation they’re a part of. It is something that feels like magic.
Values make us feel alive as individuals and as members of a team. That’s what a thriving, intentional workplace culture is about: connecting diverse individuals through a common intrinsic motivator. And core values are about as intrinsic as they get. They naturally satisfy you. How great is that?
When your work is aligned with your core values, passion is ignited.
When it’s not, stress is sure to come. When your organization knows, owns, and lives its core values, it can be intentional about attracting, retaining, and growing its people through a shared sense of purpose, productivity, and passion. Your results will speak for themselves.
But when you don’t know your core values, you will never have a clear compass or guardrails for your organizational culture. This can lead to disengagement, dissatisfaction, and disconnection, both within your team and externally, regarding your reputation and customers.
Values Reminders
Here are a few mantras and affirmations to serve you on your journey to know, own and live your values.
1. I am a walking, talking, living, breathing set of values.
2. My energy shows me when my values are present.
3. My core values are my internal compass and represent what I stand for.
4. Values reflect who I am, what I do, and how I define success and failure.
5. Every day is filled with purpose, pride, and productivity when my values are activated.
6. I am mindful of what does and does not activate my values.
7. My values are mine to define.
8. I know, own, and live my values through my actions.
9. I choose my values in the face of adversity.
10. My happiness exists in the presence of my values.
Who Is MaryBeth Hyland?
As the Founder of SparkVision and creator of Values-Based Mindfulness, MaryBeth Hyland knows that extraordinary success is rooted in the vision, values, and culture crafted by purpose-driven leaders and their teams. With over a decade of experience, built on knowledge from a BA in Social Work and MS in Nonprofit Management, she’s known for her ability to guide individuals and teams to know, own and live their values.
And she does that with the understanding that we all have a deep desire to know and return to our most authentic selves – at work, home and within.
As a keynote speaker, mindfulness instructor, and values expert she engages audiences and teams all over the world with her authentic style of facilitation, coaching and empowerment. Her recent awards include, “Circle of Excellence”, “Innovator of the Year”, “Top 100 Women”, “Civic Engagement Leader” and “Leading Women”. She has also been recognized as a leading expert by The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, NBC, CBS, FOX and more.
As the author of “Permission to Be Human: The Conscious Leader’s Guide to Creating Values-Driven Culture”, her personal life’s mission is to create spaces where voices are heard, stories are released, and alignment is ignited.