Values Change as You Grow and Evolve

Have you considered whether the values guiding your life today are ones you intentionally chose or if they’re simply values you inherited, absorbed, or held onto for security? Our personal core values shape every decision we make, whether consciously or unconsciously, from the careers we pursue to the relationships we choose. But here’s the thing—values aren’t meant to be static. I created this personal core values identification worksheet to help you redefine your most closely-held values in the current season of your life. 

As we grow and evolve, so do the things that matter most to us. What once felt like an unshakable priority—stability, predictability, external validation—might start to feel like a limitation that’s holding you back. You may begin to feel conflicted between stability and personal growth.

Download the Values Identification Worksheet

Naming your personal core values is key to making important life decisions, setting new life goals, and making daily choices to remain in alignment with yourself. Your most closely-held values will guide you as you move through your daily life and navigate within this wild world striving to live a meaningful life.

This exercise is especially helpful if you are somewhere in the middle of your life and find yourself considering a pivot such as a career change, a relationship change, or any other key life decision. If you are experiencing internal conflict, it may be because you are making decisions based on outgrown values that need to be shed in exchange for values that are more aligned with who you are now, and you are want to become. 

How to Recognize that Your Values May Be Evolving

Many women in midlife feel an internal shift but can’t quite put their finger on what’s changing. Here are some signs that your values are evolving:

1. You feel restless or unfulfilled. What once motivated or satisfied you, now feels empty.
2. You’re questioning past choices. Decisions that once felt right, now feel misaligned or even burdensome.
3. Your priorities are shifting. You find yourself caring less about external validation like titles, achievements, and material success, and more about deeper fulfillment through purposeful work, your own well-being, and more meaningful relationships.
4. You’re drawn to new interests or communities. You’re seeking new experiences, new friendships, books, mentors, or groups that reflect your shifting mindset.
5. You feel the need to simplify. There’s a pull toward decluttering – not just physically, but emotionally and mentally. You have a desire to let go of commitments, relationships, or habits that no longer serve you.

These are clear indicators that it’s time to reassess what you want more of and what you want less of in your life.

If you’re preparing to write a new chapter in your life story, I recommend starting with a re-examination of your personal core values using this worksheet as a guide. The key to living in alignment isn’t just defining your core values—it’s giving yourself permission to redefine them as you step into new seasons of life. If you feel internal conflict and restlessness, you might be holding onto outdated values you’ve outgrown.

How to Use the Personal Core Values Identification Worksheet

There are hundreds and hundreds of values. This core values worksheet will help you clarify your personal core values.

If you look at a list of 100 values, they will all seem significant and important. At first glance, you may not immediately be able to say that you prioritize one over another. As you try to narrow down your own values, it becomes increasingly more challenging to identify your top 3 most closely help values, or your personal core values. 

Using this personal core values identification worksheet, let’s do an exercise that will help you narrow down the values that matter most to you. The goal of this exercise is values clarification. 

At first, this exercise is relatively easy. However, as you narrow down your deepest, truest core values, you will begin to see that there are tradeoffs you must make in the prioritization of what matters most to you. These tradeoffs may feel uncomfortable. 

STEP 1. Determine your Top 25 Values

Using the personal core values worksheet, from the list of 100 values, determine your top 25. Although you may have an appreciation for all the words on this list, first you must narrow down your Top 25 values.

My advice at this step is: 

If possible, try not to overthink this. Instead, review the list of 100 values and circle or highlight the ones that really stand out to you. Let your intuition guide you. 

STEP 2. Now narrow down the list from your Top 25 to your Top 10 Values 

Now that you’ve identified your Top 25 values, narrow it down and try to identify your Top 10 values from this list. It will get more challenging as you progress through this exercise. 

Some values may be similar, so you can prioritize the values that are most important to you and eliminate values that feel too similar to one another.

My advice at this step is:

Consider the following questions:

• Think about decisions you’ve made recently in your life, which values guided those decisions? 
• Reflect on recent choices – What brought you fulfillment? What drained you?
• What excites you or frustrates you? These emotions often point to values.
• What qualities in yourself are you most proud of? What do you want to do more of?
• What aspects of your life frustrate you? What thoughts are going through your mind when you feel restless?
• What qualities in other people frustrate you? Reflect on why those people frustrate you.
• When you struggled to make a decision recently, what kinds of things were you torn between?

STEP 3. Now it’s time to determine your Personal Core Values  

Next, from the list of your Top 10, you will choose your Top 3 most closely-held personal values, essentially reducing the list to only your top 3 values from the list.

Just because you cross something off the list, doesn’t mean you don’t care about or appreciate that value. It simply means that when needing to make a life decision, you will place greater importance on the other 3 values. 

These are your personal core values. These are the values that matter to you now – the ones you want to guide your decisions in this next phase of your life.

My advice at this step is:

Consider the following questions:

• If you are being deeply authentic and true to how you feel in the current season of your life, what matters most to you?
• When you have to make difficult decisions, what do you place value on?
• If you are willing to be completely honest with yourself, what is causing your restlessness right now? Where do you feel conflicted?
• What are you dreaming about? Is it a job change? Perhaps it’s a total career change. Are you unfulfilled in your relationships? Do you have surface-level friendships, or friendships with depth?
• What do you really want to do with your time?
• What do you want more of in your life? What do you want less of?

List of 100 Possible Personal Core Values on the Values Identification Worksheet

Values for the Current Season of Your Life

The values that helped you build a strong foundation for your life aren’t always the ones that will help you rise to your potential in this next phase of your life.

The courage you needed to establish security might need to be replaced with the courage to embrace uncertainty. The desire for belonging might give way to a deeper need for authenticity. The pursuit of achievement might shift toward a pursuit of fulfillment.

You are making your way to your greater potential so passion, purpose, fulfillment, authenticity, alignment, deep connection, and deep self-respect may replace values you’ve outgrown. You may be willing to risk security and comfort for your deeper truth in this next season of your life.

If you’re setting new life goals, it may be helpful to acknowledge that the values, belief systems, and behaviors that got you here, are not the same values, beliefs, and behaviors that will get you there. What once kept you safe, secure, and comfortable may now be holding you back, limiting your potential, and making you feel restless and unfulfilled.

Writing Your Next Chapter

Once you redefine your values and begin making decisions in your daily life in alignment with them, you will feel some discomfort as you step outside your comfort zone. As you begin to take action toward goals and aspirations that are in alignment with what you truly want, at first you may feel the draw back to your old ways, since that’s where you’ve felt most comfortable.

You’ll likely feel a deep sense of discomfort as you step outside your comfort zone in pursuit of your higher, more authentic self. That discomfort means you are growing. Once you work through that discomfort, you can move toward greater fulfillment, personal growth, and more authenticity.  

When you consciously choose values that reflect who you are now, you create space for more clarity, purpose, and growth.

If you would like guidance and support as you take steps to write the next chapter of your story, I would be honored to help guide you through this journey of self discovery and reinvention so you can set new life goals and pursue the aspirations you’ve been dreaming about.

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