Goals & Progress
A values list where each entry tells you what it absorbs
A values list is a set of words naming what matters to you, used to narrow down the handful you actually run your life by. There are hundreds of them online, most running to 200 or 400 words, and they share two problems. They are mostly synonyms, and they tell you nothing about what any of the words mean.
So you sit there deciding whether you are more Achievement or Excellence or Mastery or Competence, which is not a values exercise, it is a thesaurus exercise. And a 400-word list produces the pleasant feeling of agreeing with almost all of it, which is the opposite of choosing.
This list is 28 cards. Each one has a description, and each one names the values it absorbs: Achievement says outright that it covers Excellence, Mastery and Competence, so that is one decision instead of four. They are the same 28 cards the Life Goals App deals, with the app’s own wording, so nothing changes when you carry your five across. Interactive version below, printable if you would rather use paper.
Download the values list.
Two sheets, ready to print. No email address needed.
- Sheet 1: all 28 cards with their descriptions and what each absorbs
- Sheet 2: your five, why each one, and your North Star
- A4, US Letter and A5 for a half-size notebook
Free to print as often as you like. Worth redoing once a year.
28 cards, because most of a 400-word list is synonyms
These are the 28 value cards the Life Goals App uses, with the app’s own descriptions. Each one absorbs its near-synonyms and says so, so Achievement, Excellence, Mastery and Competence are one decision rather than four. Tap to keep a card, tap again for the Maybe pile, and mark one as your North Star. Aim for five. Everything stays in this browser.
2. Your shortlist
The 28 cards, and why not 400 words
Longer is not better here, and it is worth being clear why. A values list has one job: to make you choose. Every word you add makes choosing harder while making the list feel more complete, which is a bad trade dressed as a generous one.
Honesty, Truthfulness, Candour, Sincerity and Integrity are one value with five labels. Offering all five is not more choice, it is a chance to spend twenty minutes picking a favourite adjective. Here they sit inside one card, Authenticity, which says so on its face.
The 28 sit in six families, the same six the app sorts by:
- Inner life (8) - Authenticity, Balance, Faith, Gratitude, Humility, Openness, Purpose, Simplicity
- Craft and mastery (4) - Achievement, Creativity, Discipline, Growth
- People and belonging (3) - Connection, Compassion, Honor
- Vitality and joy (4) - Fun, Health, Resilience, Security
- Freedom and agency (5) - Adventure, Autonomy, Courage, Power, Wealth
- Contribution and fairness (4) - Contribution, Impact, Justice, Legacy
The grouping matters because of what it exposes. When all five of your picks come out of one group, that is a finding: it usually means one part of your life has been doing all the talking. And when a whole group produces nothing at all, that is worth sitting with for a moment rather than moving past.
How to actually cut it down
- First pass, fast and generous. Go through all 28 and keep anything that lands. Do not weigh them against each other yet. Most people keep 10 to 14, which is the right shape for this stage.
- Second pass: the Maybe pile. Anything you kept because it sounded like the correct answer rather than a true one goes here. Respect, Responsibility and Discipline live here more often than people expect.
- Cut to five. This is meant to hurt slightly. If it does not, the earlier passes were too polite.
- Say why, in one line each. A value you cannot justify out loud is usually inherited rather than chosen. This step removes more values than the cut does.
- Name your North Star. One of the five. The tiebreaker for when two of your own values want opposite things.
The tiebreaker is the whole point
Five values sitting in a row are still just a list, because they never disagree on paper. They disagree in real life, and always in the same way: two of them want the same hour.
Freedom and Security both make most people's shortlist, and they are frequently opposed - the job that pays reliably and the one you would rather be doing. Family and Achievement compete for the same evenings. Growth and Peace compete for the same weekend. A ranked set answers those. An unranked set lets you claim both and then feel vaguely bad either way.
That is why the last question on the printable is where your North Star is already being ignored. Not as an accusation, and not because you are doing it wrong. It is simply the only part of this exercise that changes what happens next week.
Where this list comes from
Sorting values from a fixed deck of cards is a long-standing practice in counselling and coaching, and the version most people have met descends from the values card sort used in motivational interviewing. The six-group structure here is loosely informed by Schwartz's work on how values cluster across cultures, without claiming to reproduce his model.
The six groups are the ones the Life Goals App uses. The app itself works from a shorter deck of 28 consolidated cards, where each card stands for a cluster of related values, because a card sort you do on a phone wants fewer cards than a list you scan on paper. So the vocabulary here is wider than the app's deck by design, and your five carry over into the same six families with the same North Star.
Common questions
What is the difference between this and a personal values test?
A test asks you questions and infers your values. A list hands you the vocabulary and makes you choose. Choosing is more uncomfortable and more accurate, because nobody is guessing on your behalf. If you would rather be walked through it, the Core Values Finder is the guided card-sort version of the same exercise.
How many core values should I have?
Five, and the reason is practical rather than magical: five is roughly the most you can recall in the moment a decision is being made. A list of ten is a document. A list of five is a tiebreaker you can actually use.
Can my values change?
Yes, and the useful signal is not the words changing but the order changing. Security climbing your ranking after a child arrives, or Freedom climbing after a long stretch of duty, is information about your life rather than inconsistency. Worth redoing once a year.
Is anything I type here stored?
No. Your picks stay in your browser's local storage so the list is still there when you come back, and Save file gives you a copy you control. Nothing is transmitted.
Related tools
- Core Values Finder - the guided card sort, if you would rather be walked through it
- Wheel of Life assessment - which part of your life to work on, scored
- Life Goals Command Center - goals across the ten life areas
- Friction Map - for when a value and your week are in open conflict
