Do Your Core Values Change?

A really important component to your internal architecture is to know your core values. Like a personality test, understanding your core values is really helpful in making aligned decisions and putting yourself in your conditions for success.

Core values are known to be characteristics and preferences that are central to who you are. They’re even thought to be preprogrammed into you as a psychological DNA. But I’ve been questioning that recently.

I’ve noticed in myself that my core values appear to have changed. Not drastically and unrecognizably, but significantly enough. As I’ve navigated different seasons of life, what’s important to me is different. In the last year my faith has really become an important part of my life, but before that I didn’t think about it much. I used to pride myself in being a team player and doing what’s best for the group, but now I see reasons to put myself first in certain situations.

Do those small changes suggest I have new core values? Or is it just a matter of becoming more mature and more aware? Funny enough, for years a core value of mine has been faith but in a different context. And the reason I take better care of myself is driven out of creating personal sustainability so I can do more for others overall.

In my experience, the way my core values are being expressed has changed. It has been a process of cultivating more depth within each rather than having a new core values altogether. 

Take the example of someone who grew up in a tough household, and doesn’t really have a relationship with their parents and siblings, but just had their first child. There’s probably nothing more important in their world. 

Does that mean their core value is ‘family’ and has been all along? 

I don’t think so. I think what’s more likely is that the present situation has just brought another core value, like commitment, a new way to reach the surface. It’s an innate quality about you. But that doesn’t mean you’re meant to resist change. In fact you should embrace the changes. They don’t change who you are, they evolve you into a better version of yourself.