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Writer's pictureThomas Chapman
Sep 1, 20234 min read

Introduction to the Tools for Self-Discovery: Personal Values

Updated: Oct 21

I do a great deal of writing and speaking about the importance of understanding your personality in exploring your options in life. Understanding personality is vital for understanding yourself and how you are different. This uniqueness is often where well-intentioned advice goes astray. When we seek advice from others, we hear how they would act in your situation, but they are not you - it will be difficult for them to understand your perspective. I like math, so I often think about the chances of encountering someone similar enough to you to recognize where you are coming from. If we take only the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Enneagram, we see 144 unique personality combinations. If each combination is equal across the population, you would have a 0.7% chance of encountering someone like you! And that is where seeking advice can muddy the waters.


But even if we start to understand our personality - how we perceive the world and make our decisions, our unique motivations and fears - and we cross paths with someone who similarly experiences the world, this is only part of the picture. Next, we need to look at our values. You could have two individuals who are the same on their personality assessments, but one may value family most while the other values career success. These two individuals will think and act very similar, but they will get vastly different satisfactions from their decisions. That is why understanding your personality is only part of the journey - we need to know what you value.


But there are different ways of discovering your values.

  • Do we look at our work values - what we need from a job to be content?

  • Do we look at our behavior values - do you value wisdom or humor more?

  • Do we look at how a career will value our strengths - does it value competition or adaptability more?

  • Or how about the values we hold in life? When making a decision, what matters more - security or fame?

The challenge is each of these is a different value system, but they all come together to explain who you are.

Photo Credit: raherman on Pixaby


Ultimately, understanding your values takes time and commitment. Each of the questions from the previous paragraph represents a unique values assessment. Understanding your answer to these questions will help you unlock contentment and happiness. Let's take a case study for a moment - let's look at me. As mentioned in other writings, I was a high school band director before becoming a life coach. While I enjoyed being a band director, I felt like something was off. According to my MBTI and Enneagram, I should have found contentment in being a band director. So why did things not line up? Let's take just one of the personal values assessments that turned up my top five life values - excellence, uniqueness, freedom, friendship, and wisdom. Being a band director allowed me to pursue excellence and wisdom, accomplishing two of my top five values. But there was not a lot of freedom. My calendar was locked in for nine months out of the year, allowing for little flexibility or spontaneity. There were few options available to choose how to spend my time or focus during the day. Especially around the idea of freedom, most of my day was spent not teaching band, which was not my choice. I felt increasingly forced into situations I did not want to be in. What about uniqueness? While it is a discussion for another time, being unique is not celebrated in high school, whether you are a student or staff. If anything, being too unique was frowned upon. And friendship? Friendship requires time to cultivate. Being a high school band director takes a minimum of 45 hours a week (my longest week was during the musical, where I would easily spend 65+ hours at school). There was no space to cultivate and maintain friendships. It was common to work a whole day without interacting with other adults for more than five minutes. So, we can see that when we start to discuss aligning our lives with our values, a seemingly perfect situation could be a mismatch.


I love talking about values! It is what makes us all so unique! And I love using those values to discover new options and directions for our lives - to uncover how to live a life of fulfillment and contentment.



Tom Chapman, TruePath Discovery Coaching


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