Core Values Ideas: A List 115 Practical Values

core values list

Just like a healthy root system is essential for a healthy tree, core values are essential for a healthy life. They define our character and the way we live. Without values, we lack clarity about who we are and what we want in life. 

One of the foundational ideas in personal development is to create a value system for your life. To make this process easier for you, I went through more than 500 core values that I found on the internet.1This list of 500 on Threads Culture was useful, but had a lot of duplicates. So I also collected more than that, based on my own research. Values that leaders and inspirational people use. 

On this page, you will find 115 core values that I filtered. I went through my initial list and removed all duplicates. For example, “adventure” and “adventurous” are the same thing. These types of duplicates cluttered the lists that I found. 

I also removed anything that wasn’t practical. For example, I ran into values like “fashion” or “profits.” What does that even mean? That’s why I removed every word that wasn’t practical. The result is the following list of 115 core values. 

I have 8 core values myself (read about them here). I plan to cut them down to 5 or 6. But you can have even fewer than if that works for you. I don’t recommend more than 8 values because we can’t remember more. 

115 Core Values

  1. Accomplishment
  2. Accountability
  3. Adventurous
  4. Aggressiveness
  5. Altruism
  6. Ambition
  7. Appreciation
  8. Assertiveness
  9. Attentiveness
  10. Awareness
  11. Boldness
  12. Calmness
  13. Caring
  14. Cheerful
  15. Commitment
  16. Community
  17. Confidence
  18. Consistency
  19. Contribution
  20. Courage
  21. Craftsmanship
  22. Creativity
  23. Credibility
  24. Curiosity
  25. Decisiveness
  26. Determination
  27. Directness
  28. Discipline
  29. Discovery
  30. Diversity
  31. Dominance
  32. Empathy
  33. Empowering
  34. Enjoyment
  35. Excellence
  36. Fairness
  37. Faithfulness
  38. Family
  39. Fearlessness
  40. Flexibility
  41. Freedom
  42. Friendship
  43. Frugality
  44. Generosity
  45. Gratitude
  46. Greatness
  47. Growth
  48. Happiness
  49. Health
  50. Honesty
  51. Humility
  52. Improvement
  53. Independence
  54. Innovation
  55. Integrity
  56. Leadership
  57. Learning
  58. Listening
  59. Longevity
  60. Love
  61. Loyalty
  62. Mindfulness
  63. Openness
  64. Optimism
  65. Originality
  66. Passion
  67. Patience
  68. Perfection
  69. Persistence
  70. Playfulness
  71. Pleasantness
  72. Pragmatic
  73. Proactive
  74. Productivity
  75. Progress
  76. Prosperity
  77. Relaxation
  78. Reliability
  79. Resilience
  80. Resourcefulness
  81. Respectfulness
  82. Responsibility
  83. Restraint
  84. Risk-Taking
  85. Selfless
  86. Self-Reliance
  87. Sensitivity
  88. Sharing
  89. Silence
  90. Silliness
  91. Simplicity
  92. Smart
  93. Solitude
  94. Spirituality
  95. Spontaneous
  96. Stability
  97. Strength
  98. Sustainability
  99. Sympathy
  100. Thoughtful
  101. Tolerance
  102. Toughness
  103. Tranquility
  104. Transparency
  105. Trustworthy
  106. Truthfulness
  107. Understanding
  108. Uniqueness
  109. Usefulness
  110. Victorious
  111. Vitality
  112. Warmth
  113. Welcoming
  114. Willfulness
  115. Winning

Unfortunately, I couldn’t include everything. There will always be people who say, why is so and so not on this list? That’s not the point. This is by no means a complete list. But I hope it gave you some inspiration to get started.

That’s what matters the most. As you get started with this process, you can keep cutting down your list as you keep uncovering your core values. It’s a process. To me, that’s the most important thing about his exercise. When you start thinking about what your values are, you will get to know yourself better.

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