Values Clarification Exercises: Seven Ways to Find What Matters

Values clarification exercises sound like something you'd do in a corporate workshop, right before the trust fall and the lukewarm coffee. But stay with me, because in midlife they're one of the most practical tools you can have. When you know what you truly value, decisions get easier, guilt gets quieter, and the endless "Should I or shouldn't I?" loop finally has something to land on.

Here's the catch. Most of us have never actually sat down and named our values. We've absorbed them: from parents, partners, churches, jobs, and the general expectations of what a "good woman" does. Some of those inherited values fit beautifully. Others fit like a borrowed coat, warm and familiar, but cut for someone else.

Midlife is when that mismatch starts to show. The kids leave, the career shifts, a parent needs care, or you simply wake up one day and realize the life you're living was designed around priorities you never chose. That's not a crisis. It's an invitation to look at what you actually care about, maybe for the first time.

So let's work through seven values clarification exercises together. Some take five minutes, some take an afternoon, and all of them can be done with a pen, a notebook, and something warm to drink. After that, we'll look at how to use what you discover: making decisions, handling conflicts between values, and turning a list of words into real next steps.

We're in the Envision the Life You Want stage of the BREW System here, under the Finding What You Want . Finding what you want is much easier once you know what you value.

Why Values Clarification Exercises Matter

Values are the things you care about most deeply: freedom, family, security, creativity, adventure, faith, learning, honesty, beauty. They're not goals. Goals are things you achieve and check off. Values are directions you keep walking in. You never "finish" being creative or being kind.

Values clarification exercises help you put names to those directions. That matters more in midlife than at almost any other stage, for a few reasons.

Your values may have changed. What mattered most at 30, perhaps security, achievement, or providing for a family, may not be what matters most at 55. If you're still living by an old set of priorities, life can feel oddly hollow even when everything looks fine.

Big decisions are coming. Retirement, relocation, career changes, caregiving, downsizing, relationships. Values give you a filter for these choices. Without one, it's easy to choose based on fear, habit, or other people's opinions.

You've spent years living by other people's priorities. Many women in midlife have organized their lives around family, employers, and community for decades. Values clarification exercises help separate what you truly value from what you were expected to value.

Clarity reduces guilt. When you know what matters to you, it's easier to say no to things that don't, without spending a week feeling bad about it.

Brené Brown's Dare to Lead is the one book I'd recommend alongside these exercises. It's written for leaders, but its chapter on "living into our values" includes one of the clearest values exercises around, and her point that you can't live into values you haven't named applies to everyone.

Seven Values Clarification Exercises

You don't need to do all seven. Start with one or two that appeal to you, and come back to others later. Each one looks at your values from a different angle, and together they give a clearer picture than any single exercise can.

Exercise 1: Your peak moments (15 minutes)

Think of three to five moments in your life when you felt most alive, proud, or deeply yourself. They can be big or small: the day you finished a degree, a quiet evening with old friends, the first time you traveled alone.

For each one, ask: What was happening? What made it feel so right? Then look for the values underneath. A solo trip might point to freedom and courage. A family dinner might point to connection and belonging. Write down every value you notice.

Exercise 2: The values sort (20 minutes)

Write down a long list of values, about 30 to 40. You can start with these: adventure, authenticity, beauty, community, compassion, courage, creativity, faith, family, financial security, freedom, friendship, growth, health, honesty, independence, justice, kindness, learning, loyalty, nature, peace, play, recognition, respect, security, simplicity, spirituality, stability, tradition, wisdom.

Circle the 10 that feel most important. Then cross out half, leaving 5. Then, if you can bear it, narrow to your top 3. The narrowing is uncomfortable, and that's exactly why it's useful. It forces you to choose what matters most when you can't have everything.

Exercise 3: Whose voice is it? (15 minutes)

Look at your top values from Exercise 2. For each one, ask:

1. Where did I learn this value?
2. Would I still choose it if nobody I know would ever find out?
3. Does it give me energy, or just relief when I live up to it?

Exercise 4: Follow the anger and envy (10 minutes)

Uncomfortable feelings can offer clues, alongside other information. When something makes you angry, it often means one of your values is being stepped on. When you envy someone, it often points to a value you're not living.

Write down the last three times you felt angry and the last three times you felt envious. What value was involved in each? Envy of a friend's art studio might point to creativity. Anger at being interrupted in meetings might point to respect.

Exercise 5: The 80th birthday toast (20 minutes)

Imagine your 80th birthday party. Someone who knows you well stands up to give a toast. What do you hope they say about how you lived, what you stood for, and what you cared about?

Write the toast in their voice. Then underline the values that show up. This exercise is powerful because it looks at your values from the end of the story, where the small stuff falls away.

Exercise 6: The calendar check (15 minutes)

Open your calendar and bank statement for the last month. Where did your time and money actually go? Compare that with your top values.

Most women find a gap: they value creativity but haven't made anything in months, or they value health but haven't taken a walk in weeks. The gap isn't a failure. It's information, and it shows you exactly where small changes would make the biggest difference.

Exercise 7: Write a one-page values statement (30 minutes)

Take your top three to five values and write a short paragraph for each: what the value means to you, why it matters, and what it looks like in your daily life. Keep it to one page, so you can actually use it. Read it before big decisions.

Putting Your Values To Work

Values clarification exercises are only half the job. A list of beautiful words on a page doesn't change much on its own. The real value (sorry) comes from using them.

From values to next steps

Once you know your top values, turn them into action in three steps:

• Values. Your top three to five, from the exercises above.

• Priorities. For each value, one area of life where it should show up more. If you value creativity, maybe it's your weekends.

• Next steps. For each priority, one small action you can take this week, such as booking a class, clearing a corner of a room, or saying no to one commitment.

This simple chain keeps values from staying abstract.

Using values for big decisions

When you're facing a big choice, such as whether to stay in a job, move, retire, or change direction, your values become a filter. Ask of each option: Which of my top values does this support? Which does it work against?

For a clearer comparison, use a simple scorecard. List your top values down the side, your options across the top, and score each option from 1 to 5 on each value.

These invented, subjective scores make trade-offs visible; they do not establish which option is affordable or safe. Check essential requirements separately before comparing totals.

When your values conflict

Sometimes two values pull in opposite directions. Freedom and security are the classic midlife pair: you want adventure, but you also want to know the bills will be paid.

A few ways to handle a values conflict:

• Ask which one matters more right now. Values can take turns. Security might lead this year while you build savings, and freedom next year.

• Look for a both/and option. Can you get some freedom while protecting enough security? A trial period, a side project, or a sabbatical can often honor both.

• Set a minimum for each. Decide the minimum security you need to feel safe, then maximize freedom above that line.

Testing a values-based direction

What Values Clarification Exercises Look Like 

Here is an invented example. A 56-year-old woman has worked for the same insurance company for 24 years. She's been offered a promotion that comes with more money and more travel. Everyone around her says to take it. She can't explain why she feels so heavy about it.

She works through a few values clarification exercises over a weekend. Her peak moments all involve teaching, gardening, and time with her grandchildren. Her top five values, after much crossing out, are family, creativity, nature, security, and learning. When she does the "whose voice is it?" exercise, she notices that "achievement" was on her original list, but it sounds a lot like her father. It doesn't make her final five.

She builds a simple scorecard comparing the promotion with staying in her current role and starting a small garden-design side business on weekends. The promotion scores high on security but low on family, creativity, and nature. The side business scores lower on security but higher on everything else.

She turns down the promotion, keeps her current role for now, and starts a 30-day experiment designing gardens for two friends. Three months later, she has four paying clients and a much lighter heart. The values clarification exercises didn't make the choice for her. They made it clear what she was actually choosing between.

Common Mistakes

Choosing only values you feel expected to name can hide what matters to you. Take time to describe each value in your own words.

A gap between a value and your actions does not mean you do not care. Money, health, access, care responsibilities, and opportunity can limit what is possible. Look for support or a smaller expression of the value.

Keep a workable shortlist without treating the number as a test. Revisit it when circumstances change, and use it alongside practical facts rather than as a substitute for them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where To Go From Here

Start with one of the values clarification exercises that feels useful. Write down a few moments that mattered to you, identify possible values, and choose one small way to express a value this week.

Continue with Turn Your Values Into Goals, Values Confusion and Overwhelm, and Midlife Purpose and Meaning.

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