Your Values -- Identity & Leadership -- Learn & Lead

Identity & Leadership

What Matters to You, and Why

A value is something that genuinely matters to you, something that quietly shapes the choices you make even when nobody is telling you what to do. Everyone has values. What differs from person to person is which ones sit at the top of the list.

Researchers who study values across many different cultures have found a small set of them that show up again and again, everywhere, even though people prioritise them very differently. Knowing your own priorities makes it easier to understand your own decisions, and easier to explain them to other people too.

This section introduces those values, helps you choose the ones that matter most to you right now, and gives you space to reflect on what that actually means.

Everyone holds all of these values to some degree. What makes people different is not which values they have, but which ones they prioritise when two of them pull in different directions.

On how personal values work

Reflection

What Students Sometimes Think

Here are some thoughts students have shared about figuring out what matters to them.

All of these are honest responses. Naming what actually matters to you is genuinely hard. What this section explores is a simple way to start, by looking at values that show up in people everywhere and finding your own priorities among them.

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Spot the Value

Which Value Is This?

Read each moment and choose the value you think is most clearly shown.

Reflect

A Few Thoughts

Which of these values felt most like you, or most surprised you? Write a few thoughts.

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Well Done

You have explored a wide set of values, seen what they look like in real situations, and had space to reflect on what stood out to you. Values are not fixed forever, it is worth revisiting them every so often to see if your priorities have shifted. Head back to Rising Leaders to explore what is next.