The Core Values Exercise That Stops You Second-Guessing Every Decision

Why elite performers do this first and most people never do it at all.

Most people have never properly worked out who they actually are.

They have a vague sense of their personality. A few values they’d mention in a job interview. But pressed on what is genuinely non-negotiable — what they will and won’t compromise on, what they stand for when nobody is watching — most people go quiet.

That gap is expensive.

It shows up as indecision. As saying yes when you mean no. As working hard in a direction that doesn’t feel like yours. As a persistent, low-level sense that something is off, even when nothing is obviously wrong.

Here’s what twenty years inside professional sport taught me: the people who perform consistently — when conditions are perfect and when they aren’t — are the ones who are clear about this. They’ve done the work. They know what they stand for. And that clarity makes everything else simpler.

You need to do the same.

I learnt why this matters the hard way. When I started working at a professional rugby club, I thought doing a good job would be enough. What I didn’t understand was that without clarity about my own values, I was handing other people the pen to write my story. And they did. It took a full season of deliberate, conscious choices to rewrite it.

Perception is reality. What people believe about you becomes the lens through which everything you do gets filtered. The only way to manage that is to know exactly who you are first.

So. Let’s do that.

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The exercise

Core values are inherent and sacrosanct. They can never be compromised, either for convenience or short-term gain. They are a central part of who you are and who you want to be.

When you identify them, all of your decisions about life, work and family get easier. They align. The noise quiets down.

This takes about twenty minutes. Do it properly — don’t just read it.

Step one: Go back to the good moments.

Think of a time you were most happy. What were you doing? Who were you with?

Think of a time you were most proud. Not because someone praised you — because you knew you’d done something well.

Think of a time you were most satisfied. That quiet, solid feeling at the end of something that mattered.

And finally — what really excites you? What lights you up without you having to think about it?

Write all of it down.

Step two: Pull out the words.

Look at what you’ve written and pull out the values hiding inside those moments.

Words like: diligence, accountability, fairness, honesty, focus, commitment, resilience, courage, kindness, integrity, loyalty, generosity.

Don’t edit yourself. Write down everything that feels true. Aim for around ten words.

Step three: Find the non-negotiables.

Which of these are truly non-negotiable? Which ones, if you acted against them, would make you feel like you’d betrayed something important?

Circle those. For most people it’s three to five. Those are your core values.

List them somewhere you can see them.

Step four: Give them a shape.

Take those values and distil them into a single sentence. A motto. Something short and sharp that you can come back to when you need to make a decision or work out how you’re going to behave.

Work Conquers All — this encompasses the fact that you will always work hard, to the best of your ability, in every situation.

Good is the enemy of great — it demonstrates that you are always going to give it your best shot and never take half measures.

It doesn’t need to be clever. It just needs to be true.

Write it somewhere you’ll actually see it.

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What happens when you know

When you are clear about your values, decisions get easier.

The endless second-guessing quiets down, because you have a reference point. When something feels wrong, you can trace it back to a conflict with one of your non-negotiables. When something feels right, the same is true.

And when you know who you are, you stop performing for other people’s benefit and start living from your own. That’s when the perception piece sorts itself out — because you’re consistent. What people see on the outside matches what’s actually happening on the inside.

That consistency is rare. And it’s magnetic.

I think back to those early months at the club. What I was learning — slowly and painfully — was exactly this. The most powerful thing I could do was to be so clear about who I was and why I was there that eventually the noise had nothing to stick to.

It worked. By the end of that first season, things had shifted. The environment hadn’t changed. I had.

Start with your values. Everything else follows from there.

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The core values exercise is one of the tools I use in Week 2 of The Performance System — my five-week digital coaching programme built on the principles of elite sport. If you want to take this further, you can find out more at kateoram.co.uk.