From Stella, your emotional wellness AI
Pick from a list, narrow to three, and say what each means.
Your three values and your lines come back here as a card.
A core values quiz helps you name the few things that matter most to you. Here you pick from a list of 56 values, narrow to five and then three, and write what each one means to you. Some people call it a core values test or a personal values quiz. Either way, nothing here is graded and nobody hands you a type.
Go through the 56 values and pick every one that feels true of you, not the ones you think you ought to have. There's no limit at this step.
Keep the five that matter most, then the three you'd hold on to if you had to choose. Each value comes with a line on what it can mean, which helps when two feel close.
Write a line on what each of your three means to you. The card holds the three words and your lines, ready to copy or print. No type and no profile.
Two sets of three written for this page, to show how the lines can read. Neither is a real person's card.
Example written for this page
Family: being close enough to my sister to help on a Tuesday, not just at Christmas.
Learning: a job where I'm still getting better at something in a year.
Security: knowing rent's covered without checking my balance every week.
Example written for this page
Loyalty: I'm the one who stays, and I want to keep being that.
Calm: one evening a week that's mine, with nothing in it.
Honesty: telling my brother I need more help, instead of hinting.
All 56 values in the quiz, in six groups, each with a plain line on what it can mean. The list and the lines were written for this page.
Narrowing is the hard part, and it's meant to be. Every value on the list is a good thing. The question is which ones you'd hold on to when they pull in different directions.
When two feel equal, try one of these. Ask which you'd keep if you had to give the other up for a year. Think of a decision you're proud of and ask which value made it. Or ask which one you'd want people to name if they described you. If they still feel equal, pick either one. You can redo the quiz whenever you like.
Three words are most useful when something is pulling at them. Next time you're weighing a choice, write each option down and ask how it sits with each of your three. A choice that serves one value and costs another isn't wrong. It's just clearer what you're trading.
A pros and cons list can hold that comparison on paper, and the decision maker can help when the options are small and you just need to move. If the choice is about the future, a letter to your future self is a good place to write down why you chose.
One widely used framework is Shalom Schwartz's theory of basic human values. It describes ten broad values, among them security, benevolence and self-direction, that are recognized across cultures, and it maps how some of them pull against each other.
Psychologists have also studied self-affirmation, an exercise that usually has people write about the values that matter most to them. This quiz isn't that exercise, and it doesn't promise what those studies found. It keeps to one plain step: name a few values and put them in your own words. It's a reflection, not a graded values assessment, and there's no right answer.
Source: overview of the theory of basic human values, Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2012.
Source: review of research on self-affirmation, which often uses writing about personal values, Annual Review of Psychology, 2014.
Three words on a card are clear. Real choices are messier: the job that serves one value and costs another, the person who needs you when you need rest.
Stella is your emotional wellness AI. You can tell her what you're weighing by voice or text, and she helps you think it through and choose a small step when you're ready.
Core values are the few things that matter most to you, the ones that shape what you choose when it counts. Most people have many values, but only a handful do the real work in hard decisions. Naming them makes it easier to see why a choice feels right or keeps bothering you.
If you're asking “what are my values”, start wide, then narrow. Pick every value that sounds like you from a long list, without overthinking it. Keep five, then three, asking which you'd hold on to if they pulled against each other. Then write what each means to you, because one word means different things to different people.
Three to five is a workable range. Fewer than three can miss something real, and more than five gets hard to use in a decision. This quiz stops at three so the card stays short enough to look at when you're choosing. Your five are worth writing down too.
No. A values quiz isn't a test, and this one gives no type, profile or grade. The values on the list are all good things. What matters is which ones are most yours right now. If you redo it next year and land on a different three, that tells you something too.
Yes. What changes most often is which value leads. A new parent might find Family moves ahead of Adventure. Someone coming through an illness might put Health first. Redoing the quiz after a big change, like a move, a loss or a new job, is a good way to see what shifted.
