Live Your Core Values

Abstract

The Live Your Core Values framework is a structured self-assessment and reflective exercise designed to assist individuals in identifying, articulating, and prioritizing their most fundamental personal and professional values. This non-psychometric tool guides the user through a five-step process: initial selection from an extensive list of approximately 130 values, grouping related values into a maximum of five thematic clusters, selecting a definitive label for each cluster, transforming these labels into actionable statements by adding a verb, and finally, prioritizing the resulting actionable core values to serve as a reference guide for decision-making and behavioral alignment. The exercise is fundamentally a coaching and personal development instrument aimed at fostering purposeful living and increasing value-action congruence.

Keywords

Core values, self-assessment, personal development, value clarification, purposeful living, behavioral alignment, coaching tool, intrinsic motivation.

Authors

Associated with TapRooT® (System Improvement Specialists)

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Purpose

The primary purpose of the Live Your Core Values exercise is to facilitate value clarification, enabling users to consciously align their daily decisions and actions with their deepest personal beliefs. By reducing a vast array of potential values into a small, manageable, and prioritized set of actionable statements, the framework provides a pragmatic reference point.

This alignment is intended to enhance feelings of fulfillment, reduce internal conflict, and guide individuals in living a more authentic and purposeful life. The final actionable values serve as immediate criteria against which major life and professional choices can be evaluated, promoting internal consistency and motivation.

Construct

This framework focuses on the construct of Core Values, which are defined as fundamental beliefs that guide or motivate attitudes and actions. The exercise operates on the premise that identifying and acting upon these values leads to greater psychological well-being and improved performance.

The process moves beyond simple identification to focus on Value-Action Congruence, or the degree to which an individual’s behaviors reflect their espoused values. By requiring the user to transform static values (e.g., “Freedom”) into dynamic, verb-driven statements (e.g., “Live in freedom”), the instrument operationalizes the construct, shifting the focus from abstract belief to concrete, observable behavior.

Validity

As a reflective, self-guided coaching tool rather than a formal psychometric instrument, the Live Your Core Values framework does not report traditional statistical validity measures (e.g., construct, concurrent, or predictive validity). The framework is designed for personal discovery, and thus, its utility is primarily assessed by the individual user’s subjective experience.

Its validity rests largely on the subjective resonance and perceived usefulness of the identified values to the individual user, often referred to as face validity in applied settings. The effectiveness of the tool is qualitatively measured by the user’s ability to consistently apply the derived actionable values in guiding their subsequent life decisions.

Reliability

Standard measures of internal consistency (e.g., Cronbach’s alpha) or test-retest reliability are not applicable or available for this exercise. Because the identified core values are inherently subjective and dynamic—reflecting an individual’s current stage of life and priorities—the expectation of high statistical reliability over time is limited.

Instead, the reliability of the output is interpreted through the consistent and stable application of the derived actionable values in the user’s daily life, and the subjective sense of coherence and authenticity achieved through the process.

Factor Analysis

This instrument is not based on empirical factor analysis. The framework explicitly requires the user to perform a subjective categorization process, grouping similar values together based on personal meaning and creating a maximum of five thematic clusters. This process of clustering is a self-directed, qualitative form of factor reduction, where the individual defines their own latent structure rather than deriving one statistically from a large sample.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-Assessment / Coaching Tool / Value Clarification Framework

Format: Checklist and Structured Categorization Exercise (Five steps)

Language Available: English (as presented in the source material)

Population Group: General adult population; suitable for personal development, professional coaching, and organizational alignment exercises.

Age Group: Mature adolescents and adults (typically 16+), requiring a capacity for abstract reasoning and self-reflection.

Population Details: Primarily used in professional development seminars, coaching sessions, and personal goal-setting contexts.

Test Methodology: A five-step reflective process involving selection, grouping, labeling, action-verb conversion, and prioritization of values.

Keywords

Personal values, decision-making, self-discovery, coaching framework, behavioral guidance, value prioritization, life purpose, authenticity.

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Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: N/A (Organizational Tool)

Affiliation Email addresses: N/A (Organizational Tool)

Correspondence Address: TapRooT® System, Knoxville, TN, USA (Based on organizational affiliation)

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Permissions: The instrument is often provided freely as an online resource or template for personal use. Users intending to incorporate this framework into commercial coaching practices, training modules, or publications should consult the original source (TapRooT) for specific licensing requirements.

Fee: Often provided free online; commercial use may require licensing.

Test Year: The framework was documented and published online in 2014, based on the archive link provided by the source organization.

Reference’s

TapRooT®. (2014). Live Your Core Values. Retrieved from http://www.taproot.com/archives/37771.

TapRooT®. Official Website. Retrieved from http://www.taproot.com/.

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Items of the Live Your Core Values

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. Determine your core values. From the list below‚ choose and write down every core value that resonates with you. Do not overthink your se‎lection. As you read through the list‚ simply write down the words that feel like a core value to you personally. If you think of a value you possess that is not on the list‚ write it down.

2. Group all similar values together from the list of values you just cr‎eated. Group them in a way that makes sense to you‚ personally. cr‎eate a maximum of five groupings. If you have more than five groupings‚ dr‎op the least important grouping(s). See the example below.

• Abundance‚ Growth‚ Wealth‚ Security‚ Freedom‚ Independence‚ Flexibility‚ Peace
• Acceptance‚ Compassion‚ Inclusiveness‚ Intuition‚ Kindness‚ Love‚ Making a Difference‚ Open-Mindedness‚ Trustworthiness‚ Relationships
• Appreciation‚ Encouragement‚ Thankfulness‚ Thoughtfulness‚ Mindfulness
• Balance‚ Health‚ Personal Development‚ Spirituality‚ Well-being
• Cheerfulness‚ Fun‚ Happiness‚ Humor‚ Inspiration‚ Joy‚ Optimism‚ Playfulness

3. Choose one word within each grouping that represents the label for the entire group. Again‚ do not overthink your labels – there are no right or wrong answers. You are defining the answer that is right for you. See the example below – the label chosen for the grouping is bolded.

• Abundance‚ Growth‚ Wealth‚ Security‚ Freedom‚ Independence‚ Flexibility‚ Peace
• Acceptance‚ Compassion‚ Inclusiveness‚ Intuition‚ Kindness‚ Love‚ Making a Difference‚ Open-Mindedness‚ Trustworthiness‚ Relationships
• Appreciation‚ Encouragement‚ Thankfulness‚ Thoughtfulness‚ Mindfulness
• Balance‚ Health‚ Personal Development‚ Spirituality‚ Well-being
• Cheerfulness‚ Fun‚ Happiness‚ Humor‚ Inspiration‚ Joy‚ Optimism‚ Playfulness

4. Add a verb to each value so you can see what it looks like as a actionable core value‚ for example:

• Live in freedom.
• Seek opportunities for making a difference.
• Act with mindfulness.
• Promote well-being.
• Multiply happiness.

This will guide you in the actions you need to take to feel like you are truly living on purpose.

5. Finally‚ write your core values in order of priority in your planner‚ so they are available as an easy reference when you are faced with decisions. For example:

1. Live in freedom.
2. Act with mindfulness.
3. Promote well-being.
4. Multiply happiness.
5. Seek opportunities for making a difference.