Core Values and Goals: How to Choose Your Core Values

Ask someone why they want to run a half marathon and you'll get an answer like "to be healthy" or "to prove I can". That answer is a core value. It's the reason under the goal.

Core values are the handful of areas in life that matter most to you. Choosing them before you choose goals does three things. It helps you think of goals worth setting. It helps you say no to goals that don't fit. And it shows you, over time, where your effort is really going.

What counts as a core value

A core value is short, usually one or two words, and broad enough to hold several goals. Common ones:

Health
Family
Career
Finance
Spirituality
Friends
Learning
Adventure
Contribution, meaning what you give back

There's no right list. The test is simple: if you looked back on a year and saw no progress in this area, would you mind? If yes, it's a core value.

How to choose yours

Write down every area that matters. Don't filter yet. Ten or fifteen words is fine.
Group the overlaps. "Fitness", "sleep" and "eating well" might all be Health.
Cut to four to eight. Fewer than four and goals get crammed together. More than eight and the list stops helping you choose.
Use your own words. If "Faith" means more to you than "Spirituality", use it.

Your values will shift as your life does. Look at them once a year and change what no longer fits.

Linking goals to values

Every goal should serve one value. When you write a goal, ask which value it's for. If you can't answer, ask whether the goal is worth your time.

Once goals are linked, you can step back and look at the spread. Most people find their goals bunch up. Lots of Career, nothing for Family. Lots of Health, nothing for Finance. That's useful to know. You don't need a goal for every value at once, but a value that goes untouched for a year is worth a second look.

Values and dreams

Values work for dreams too. When you're deciding which dream to turn into a goal next, check which value has had the least attention lately. That's often a good place to start.

Values in a team or school

Organisations have core values too, such as Safety, Customers first or Respect. When people link their work goals to the organisation's values, managers can see which values the team's effort is going into, and which are being left behind.

In Lifetick

New personal accounts start with Health, Family, Career, Finance and Spirituality. You can rename them, change their colours and have up to 10. Each goal links to one value, and the Goals page can group your goals by value. See Tie goals to your core values.

In a team or school, an admin decides whether everyone picks their own values, starts with the organisation's or uses one shared set. See Set your core values and Progress by core value.

Do it in Lifetick Tie goals to your core valuesLink each goal to a core value such as Health or Family, and rename, recolour or add values to fit your life.Set your core valuesChoose whether everyone shares your organisation's core values, starts with them, or picks their own, and set the values themselves.Progress by core valueSee where your team's goals and effort sit across your core values, for the whole team on the Outcomes report and for each person.Create a dreamKeep the big things you'd love to do one day as dreams, with how likely they feel and why they matter, until you're ready to make them goals.

Start with one goal

Lifetick is free on iPhone and the web, and five quick questions make it a SMART goal.

Core values, the reason under goals