Lesson 3: Revealing Your Relationship Values for Meaningful Connections

Self-Discovery Course: Build Strong and Fulfilling Relationships

• Lesson 1: Love Essentials: Identifying Your Relationship Needs
• Lesson 2: Love Essentials: Fulfilling Your Relationship Needs
• Lesson 3: Revealing Your Relationship Values for Meaningful Connections
• Lesson 4: Beyond Compromise: How Non-Negotiables Influence Your Love
• Lesson 5: The Power of Boundaries
• Lesson 6: Introduction to The Attachment Styles
• Lesson 7: Finding Your Attachment Style
• Lesson 8: Know the Attachment Type of Your Partner to Date Mindfully
• Lesson 9: How to Date with Confidence or Learning Your Strengths, Overcome Your Weaknesses
• Lesson 10: Defining and Achieving Your Relationship Goals
• Lesson 11: Breaking the Vicious Cycle or Identifying and Overcoming Past Relationship Patterns

In this lesson, we will discuss core values, learn how to express them to your loved one, and how to find a partner based on them.

What Are Core Values?

If we try to describe it in simple words, a core value is a principle, deep belief, or perspective that plays a crucial significance in one’s life, decisions, behavior, and choices. Every person has their own combination of core values, however, for most people, they are very common. For example, altruism, accountability, accomplishment, belonging, cooperation, excellence, family, humor, patience, and recognition can be core values. When it comes to dating, a person may value honesty, respect, communication, trust, flexibility, empathy, fun, and generosity. Ultimately, what’s vital is not the complete match of core values but the fact that the values of both partners are either alike or harmonize well together.

Why Do You Need to Know Your Core Values Before You Start a Relationship?

Choose a Partner with Aligning Core Values

Aware of you or not, but we all have certain values that are absolutely non-negotiable to us. Let’s say if honesty is essential to you as air, and no matter the circumstances you always want to know the truth, you would likely seek a partner who also upholds values such as trust, openness, and transparency.

This also enhances your ability to convey what you value in a relationship and establish clearer boundaries. The sooner you assess values with your potential partner, the greater the odds of forming a strong bond with someone who truly aligns with you. Based on how closely your core values align, like your views on family, religion, or politics, you can predict potential conflicts even in the early stages.

Resolve Disagreements and Find a Middle Ground

Being fully aware of your own fundamental values provides clarity on what you can compromise on and what elements are too critical to negotiate. You’ll avoid unnecessary disagreements with your partner over issues that hold less importance to you. If your principles align but you differ on certain aspects, try resolving conflicts by referencing the shared higher values.

Establish Profound Connections

Discussing core values requires a vulnerable openness, revealing your innermost self to another person. This fosters better understanding, trust, and connection. Although it might be challenging to be this open in the early stages of a relationship, the payoff is a deeper understanding and increased confidence in your partner.

Exercise: Recognize Your Core Values

To help you identify your core values, we will guide you through a similar process as was described by Brene Brown in “Dare to Lead”.

Step 1. Look Through the List of Values

First, you need to check the full list of qualities, which we took from Brene’s website. Look through the values below and add yours if some are missing.

Step 2. Pick Values that Resonate with You

Now the challenge is to narrow down the list to your top two core values. At first, this task may seem daunting, but we’ll break it down into manageable steps. Start by scanning the list and highlighting a maximum of 20 values that you believe are most crucial to you. Feel free to highlight as many as you deem fit and then revisit your selection. You may find that some values inherently encompass others.

As an example, when I chose optimism and humor, I realized that my interpretation of optimism inherently includes a sense of humor and the capacity to laugh at any problem. As such, I could remove humor from my list. Excluding things like that come to 10-20 values that are crucial to you.

Step 3. Group Values

As you can see many of your values are still related to each other. Mapping your values is like making a drawing of how your important beliefs are connected to each other. Doing this can help you understand them better. This can also help you see which values are at the heart of the others. So, take a look at your list of 20 important beliefs. Try to group them based on what they mean. In our example, it looks something like this:

• Wisdom: Honesty, Trust, Optimism, Balance, Health
• Personal fulfillment: Competence, Efficiency, Growth, Perseverance, Success
• Independence: Freedom, Courage, Creativity
• Love: Family, Friendship, Caring, Gratitude, Cooperation

You can choose an extra value from your list to name each group, or just pick one from the group that sums up all the ideas in it. You might even want to put some of your values into two groups at the same time. That’s totally okay.

The main thing to remember is that this activity helps you cut down your list to only 4-5 key values.

Step 4: Identify Your Two Most Important Values

Take another look at your groups and try to combine them into just two groups. Look for what these groups share and how certain values might be the spark or driving force for all the other values in the group.

In our example, we combined Personal Fulfillment and Independence. That’s because Personal Fulfillment is all about growing your skills, achieving things, being effective, and succeeding. And you can only do these things if you have enough bravery, originality, and freedom. The values in this group guide a person towards the feeling of Personal Fulfillment. So, that’s the first main value in our example.

For the second main value, we chose Wisdom, because it’s a broader idea. If someone truly has Wisdom, they understand Love and Balance. They get why it’s so crucial to be honest and trustworthy, how to be kind, to work well with others, and build good relationships with friends and family.

Step 5. Tell Someone About Your Core Values

So now you’ve got two main values and you understand exactly what they mean to you. In our example, these are:

• Wisdom: This includes being honest, trusting, optimistic, balanced, healthy, loving, family-oriented, friendly, caring, grateful, and cooperative.
• Personal Fulfillment: This involves being competent, efficient, growing, persevering, successful, independent, free, courageous, and creative.

A great way to fully understand something is to explain it to someone else. So, your task now is to write a short and clear sentence that describes your values to another person. This can help you understand yourself better and clearly show what you want in a partner.

Here’s our example:

• I value Wisdom, which to me includes balancing work and life, looking after my health and mood, and communicating and cooperating with others.
• I value Personal Fulfillment, as it allows me to express my core life values like growth, freedom, creativity, success, efficiency, and perseverance.

Step 6. Verify Your Core Values

Now, it’s time for a final check of your values. Take one more look at them and ask yourself.

1. Do these values really describe who I am?
2. Is this how I behave when I’m at my best?
3. Do I use this as a guideline when making tough choices?
4. Can I name one or two actions that reflect this value?
5. How do I feel when I live according to this value?
6. What are the signs that I’m not living in line with this value?
7. Do you really feel happy and satisfied when I follow these values?
8. Am I ready to speak out about these values?
9. Do I use these values in my everyday life?
10. Do I stick to these values when life throws challenges at me?

Be honest with yourself. There can be no judgment when it comes to values.

How to Find a Partner With Your Values

Live Your Values

People who live their values are passionate, have energy for life, and are very attractive. You will naturally meet somebody who admires your values and wants to share them with you. Living your values, you will go to the places where people with your values gather and you will visit events that usually attract such people, your soul mates. If you already have a partner, you will keep being excited for him or her when you have genuine interests and life aligned with core values.

Change Your Life to Live Your Core Values Every Day

It might take some time to do this, but every minute is worth it. Plan your work and rest around your core values and you will feel how passion comes back to your life.

Start Living Your Values Right Now

Write down an action that you can do to live up to your core values. For example, if your value is Wisdom, you can meditate or read a self-development book today. If your value is Beauty, you can plan a visit to the art gallery. Yes, maybe now you are too focused on starting a relationship, but in fact, the best way to start a good relationship is to stop focusing on it too much. Instead, focus on your passions and values.

Exercise: Write down at least 5 things that you can do to live your core values this week and at least one thing that you can do today.

Discuss Core Values with Your Partner

Knowing your partner’s main values is really important, but you probably won’t start asking such deep questions on the first date as it can confuse many people. However, once you realize there’s some chemistry and shared interests, you can start picking up clues about your partner’s main values. Do they talk about their family a lot? What seems to be most important to them? Do they get upset quickly? How do they treat you and others?

By the fourth date, you could start to steer the conversation towards core values, but without asking directly. For instance, you could share some stories related to your values and ask what your partner thinks. It’s a natural time to talk about what values are important in a romantic relationship. You can also start discussing work and personal goals quite early, as these topics can give you clues about their main values.

Test How Your Core Values Match

After you identify your and your partner’s core values, find some activities that you can do together and fulfill them. Such common activities will either make you closer or show that you are not compatible with each other.

Exercise: Write down three lists, putting your core values in the first one, your partner’s core values in the second one, and the activities that you can do to manifest your core values together in the third one.

That’s all for today! Stay tuned for our next lesson, where we will learn about your relationship non-negotiables.

Your Flisk