core values exercise college essay guy

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5 Biggest Tips on How to Stand Out on Your College Essay This Fall

Hey, it’s Elena! Scoir and College Essay Guy just hosted our event: How to Stand Out on Your College Essays This Fall. In case you missed it, we're rounding up the 5 biggest tips from the event to help you write outstanding personal statements, supplemental essays, and more!

Here are the 5 Biggest Tips from the event:

1. How to Find Your Personal Statement Topic 🤔

2. values exercise 💛.

At 9:50 , College Essay Guy talks about an exercise that he feels is so core to planning out your college essay. Exploring and identifying your core values can help you see how these values manifest themselves in what you do in your life, what you do for fun, and what you'll bring to a college campus. You'll want to check out the full Values Exercise to follow along!

3. Thoughts on this Year's New Supplemental Essays 💬

Each year, many colleges change the prompts for their supplemental essays, which are additional essays (aside from your personal statement) that some schools require with your application.  At 20:18 , College Essay Guy shares his quick thoughts on this year's new prompts!

4. Two Approaches to the "Why Us?" Essay 👀

At 24:02 , College Essay Guy dives into one kind of essay that won't be going away anytime soon on college applications: the "Why Us?" essay .  If you've scrolled through different schools' essay prompts, you've definitely seen at least one of them ask: "Why do you want to attend XYZ college?" When you're applying to multiple colleges that ask that question, it can be hard to figure out how to be personal in your response for each school. College Essay Guy shares how you can craft your responses in a way that's both honest and unique, and that targets specific aspects of the college that align with you and your goals.

5. Ways to Improve Your Activities List 🎨

Finally, the cherry on top of your college applications: your Activities List ! How can you best showcase the activities you're involved in on your college applications? Are there ways you can re-word what you've already written to make sure the hard work you've done is standing out?   Pop over to 36:26 in the replay to hear College Essay Guy's advice!

BONUS: Sign Up for Upcoming Courses with College Essay Guy!

Want to hang out with College Essay Guy for a month in September? He'll be hosting two courses where you'll have the chance to write your entire personal statement, supplemental essays, and more with personal support from the College Essay Guy Team!

Sign Up for September Courses:

How to Write a Personal Statement

How to Write the College Application and Supplemental Essays

Sign Up for More Courses:

• One-on-One College Essay and Application Coaching
• Matchlighters Scholars Program (free one-on-one counseling & essay coaching for high-achieving low-income students)

We know you're going to write amazing college essays, just by being you! Good luck with brainstorming and starting your applications :)  —Elena

The links included on this page are sponsored, and Scoir will receive a small commission if you choose to purchase.

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Find Your Core Values to Rock Your Essay, and Your Future!

by j9robinson | Aug 4, 2015

The 2015-16 Common Application is officially out. If you’re applying to college, you will be making a lot of decisions in upcoming months. Important ones.

What schools should you apply to?

What should you write your college application essay about so you get accepted?

Once you get in, what do you think you will want to study or do in college?

Even though I mainly try to help students figure out great topics for their essays, I think all these big decisions have one thing in common: You can help yourself immensely if you take a little time to identify what matters most to you in your life.

Most of you have been so busy with homework, and sports and friends these past years, there hasn’t been much time to stop and reflect on yourself, and what you care the most about at this point.

It’s not hard to do, and it doesn’t have to take a ton of time.

There’s a simple exercise that can help you determine what are called your core values.

Once you have a few of these in hand, you might find it much easier to decide where to apply to college, what to write about yourself to help get you into your target schools and even what to study once you get in.

(This is exactly what students at Harvard do to learn How to Live Wisely and stay on top of their game. So why not you, too!)

You can use your core values to help filter all the options when you make these decisions.

First, scan this list of principles, standards and qualities and jot down the ones you really care about (or print out this post and circle them). Then, if you have more than a dozen, notice how some are similar, and narrow it down to about five or so that these few  best describe your core values.

Acceptance Accomplishment Accountability Achievement Acquisition Action Adventure Alignment Altruism Amusement Art Assistance Athleticism Attractiveness Authenticity Awareness Beauty Being Bliss Boldness Calm Career Change Charity Civil rights Coach  Collaboration  Committed Community Compassion Competition Comprehending Connection Consciousness Consideration Constancy Contentment Contribution Control Cooperation Courage Create Creativity Curiosity Danger Dare Debate Delight Democracy Dependability Detection Dignity Direct Discovery Discrimination Distinguish Diversity Do good Economic Security Education Effectiveness Elegance Emotional Wellbeing Empathy Encourage Encouragement Energy Enlightenment Entertainment Environment Equality Ethics/Ethical Excellence Excitement Experience Experiment Expertise Explain Exquisiteness Facilitation Fairness Faith Fame Family Feeling good Fitness Freedom Friendship Fun Generosity Grace Gratitude Growth Guidance Happiness Harmony Healing Health Honesty Honor Hope Humility Imagination Improvement Independence Influence Information Inner peace Innovation Insight Inspiration Instruction Integrity Intelligence Introspection Inventiveness Involvement Irony Joy Justice Kindness Knowledge Laughter Leadership Learning  Longevity  Love Loyalty Magnificence Mastery Meaning Merriment Mindfulness Money Morality Music Nature Nobility Nurturance Observation Openness Optimism Order Organization Originality Patience Patriotism Peace Peacefulness Perception Personal Development Philosophy Play Pleasure Positive attitude Power Practicality Preparation Presence Principle Proficiency Progress Provider Purpose Quest Questioning Radiance Recognition Relatedness Relationships Relaxation Reliability Religious/Religion Resourcefulness Respect Responsibility Responsiveness Risk Safety Schooling Security Self-awareness Self-worth Sensations Sensuality Serenity Service Simplicity Skepticism Social  responsibility  Spirituality Stability Status Stimulation Strength Strengthen Success Superiority Support  Sustainability  Talent Teaching Tenderness Touch Tranquility Trust Truth Truthfulness Understanding Victory Vision Wealth Wholeness Winning Wisdom Wit 

Shoot for a short list with values that aren’t too similar to each other.

Do one or two stand out above the others?

Now, when you are exploring potential colleges for your list, or visiting them and starting to apply, go back to these values and make sure those are places that will help you maintain those values.

And when you think about what you want to study or major in, or what classes to take, or what activities to pursue in college, make sure those pursuits also support your values.

Otherwise, what’s the point?

Use Your Core Values to Brainstorm College Application Essay Topics!

As far as thinking up an awesome topic for your college application essay, try this:

Pick one of your core values. Now try to brainstorm “a time” when it was challenged or a problem ( Hello Common App Prompt 4! ). Or “a time” when you developed that value because of your background, talent, identity or interest ( Hello Common App Prompt 1! ). Or “a time” when you messed up and lost sight of that value ( Hello Common App Prompt 2! ).

These are real-life moments  (anecdotes) from your past that you could use to craft a meaningful personal essay, which would have interest and meaning and showcase what you care most about.

Those real-life “times” are examples of what matters the most to you. And if you share how you handled that time, you have material for your essay that can reveal your values, and how you think about them and how you act on them when they are challenged, ignored or jeopardized for any reason.

I often have my tutoring students start by collecting their defining qualities and work from there to mine great essay topics. But you can also start with one of your core values.

The trick to writing a great essay about that value is to find a real-life moment or experience that illustrates not only that value, but how you related to it. Look for “a time” when something happened that related to that value, and then you can share how you thought about it, what you did to handle it and what you learned in the process.

Your real-life mini-stories are what will power your essays and make them engaging, unique and memorable. And if they showcase one of your core values, they will have instant relevance and meaning.

Best of all, you got yourself an awesome topic !

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College Bound? Made of Compassion and Creativity: Meet Ethan Sawyer, College Essay Guy

Do Something Awesome; Share With A Friend Who May Benefit

Sometimes, if we are lucky enough, our paths cross with genuine people who truly want to make a difference in the world, especially for youth. When I come across someone of this nature, I make extra effort to ensure I nurture and care for the relationship. I have not recommended specific names or people on this site in the past. In the four years I’ve been running this outlet, I am proud to introduce you to my new friend and colleague, Ethan Sawyer, the College Essay Guy. He’s a very special person helping a vast number of college-bound students across the country. And, he recently told me his book, College Essay Essentials is the #1 book on college essays in the world today! Read our interview below. I’m sure you will enjoy it as much as I love his authentic and passionate work.

Ethan, how did you land in this space helping students across the country with their college essay needs?

In a roundabout way, I think my whole life has prepared me for it. I give a longer version of this story on my About page, but the short version is this: I grew up as a missionary kid, moving around a lot and needing to learn how to ask good questions. I also really loved to write (I was the kid in the corner of the party writing down what people said and turning them into poems). Then in college I studied screenwriting and moved to Los Angeles with my best friend to be a screenwriter. But I got a great job coaching students on their personal statements and found a lot of what I’d learned about screenwriting applied to college essays, so I started teaching my students screenwriting structure and it worked: they told more compelling stories and we both enjoyed the process more. As I started more deeply delving into counseling (Nonviolent Communication, Narrative Therapy), I started developing more tools and started sharing them on a blog ( CollegeEssayGuy.com ) and people really responded—counselors, students and parents started writing me notes thanking them for how a particular exercise or blog post had helped them or their students open up. So I started doing more–leading workshops, teaching online courses, and creating more resources—and it kind of evolved into my dream job. I certainly didn’t grow up thinking “I want to be the College Essay Guy” when I grow up, but now I’m really proud of the values that the name and the website represent in both the counseling community and the world at large.

Can you tell us about the importance of the college personal statement? Where does it fall against the other factors in the admissions process?

In terms of the admissions process, grades are the biggest factor (a great essay can’t make up for straight C’s if you want to get into a highly selective school), and many schools still value test scores highly. But when it comes to a student trying to differentiate him or herself among many other students with great grades and test scores, the essays can make a big difference— the difference, in some cases. On a deeper level, I believe writing a personal statement is about so much more than getting into college—it’s about taking stock of one’s life and discovering (and not just reporting on) how one’s memories and experiences have shaped who the student is today. It’s a rite of passage and, in many cases, can be an empowering, healing and really fun process.

If I asked you how to write a college personal statement, how would you describe it in steps or as a summary?

I like this question. In terms of content, I like to begin with the Essence Objects and Values Exercise, which are the two 5-10 minute exercises that open my book, College Essay Essentials . I think it’s possible to have all the content you need for a personal statement in about 15 minutes using these two exercises (really).

In terms of structure, I ask these two questions first: “Have you faced significant challenges?” and “Do you know what you want to be or do when you grow up?” The answers to those two questions map out into four types of essays (more on this in a second) and each type requires a different approach. In the book I give a step-by-step process for each type.

You share four types of student storytellers in your program offerings and classes. Can you elaborate a bit on each type of student?

• Type A: Student HAS faced significant challenges and KNOWS what s/he wants to do in the future.
• Type B: Student has NOT faced significant challenges and does NOT know what s/he wants to do in the future.
• Type C: Student HAS faced significant challenges and does NOT know what s/he wants to do in the future.
• Type D: Student has NOT faced significant challenges and does NOT know what s/he wants to do in the future.

For the Type A and Type C (challenge) essays, I recommend Narrative Structure, which connects story events in a causal way (Example: I faced X challenge, so I did Y and the impact was Z). This is the structure most American films use and (to make it really rock) depends on some sort of change, a catharsis, or a deep lesson.

But students certainly don’t need to write on a challenge.

For the Type B and D (no challenge) essays, I recommend Montage Structure, which connects story events thematically. The theme could be anything from “This essay represents the scrapbook of my life ” to “ Endodontics .”

You have a comprehensive set of video courses for students, parents, and counselors that specifically covers how to write the college personal statement. Can you tell us about your new course offering?

I work with a small number of students one-on-one each year and two years ago I was trying to figure out how to work with not only more students, but also more counselors and parents—as they’re often the ones helping students write the essays. So I created a course called “ How to Write a Personal Statement ” that’s available on-demand and replicates working with me one-on-one. Over the course of seven lessons, I walk students step-by-step through the process and offer Q&A to address specific issues.

Let’s imagine I was having coffee with you as a prospective college student; what would be the three most important tips you’d share with me about the college essay writing process?

• Don’t focus too much on the prompt for your main essay. That gets you into your head thinking what “they” (some imagined admissions reader or readers) wants as opposed to focusing on the brilliant, beautiful gifts you (the student) have to offer.
• Strive for uncommon connections. A boring essay chooses a common topic, makes common connections, and uses common language. A stand-out essay chooses an uncommon topic, makes uncommon connections and uncommon language. And remember: the more common the topic, the more uncommon the connections need to be.
• Your English teacher might say “Show, don’t tell,” but I say “Show, then tell.” The show demonstrates you’re a great writer; the tell demonstrates you’re a critical thinker. Be both.

You have an impressive suite of free resources on your site, and you also provide unique offerings for those who may not be able to afford your services. Can you tell us more about that process?

Most of my courses and resources are free or pay-what-you-can. One of my core values is access, and I want to help to students, regardless of income. [clickToTweet tweet=”Plus, a wise human once said, “No one ever went poor from giving.” I believe that.” quote=”Plus, a wise human once said, “No one ever went poor from giving.” I believe that.”]

What’s on the horizon for 2017? Do you have any new events, speeches or conferences coming up that you’d like to share with our readers?

The College Essay Guy podcast! I’ll be interviewing some of the most well-known and well-respected folks in the world of admissions. I can’t be the expert on everything, but I’m great at asking questions (it’s kinda’ my job) and creating useful resources, so I’ll be turning those interviews into new (fun) guides. I’m also creating a Counselor Workshop in a Box so any counselor can lead a great in-person workshop, whether for one student or 400 students, 1-hr or over the course of several days. Finally, I’m doing a three-day workshop for counselors in the Santa Cruz mountains. I’m excited to dive deep with them and explore what it means to be a counselor (and a human).

Finally, what do find most fulfilling about your role as the College Essay Guy?

I think I like that people feel really comfortable emailing me. I get all sorts of messages from all over the world with people saying everything from “Keep up the great work!” to “I’m stuck” to “I feel like we’re soul mates.” I think people feel they can reach out to me and tell me what they’re thinking. And they can.

Ethan’s Bio

Ethan Sawyer is a nationally recognized college essay expert and sought-after speaker. Each year he helps thousands of students and counselors through his online courses, workshops, articles, products, and books, and works privately with a small number of students. His book, College Essay Essentials (released July 2016), is currently the #1 bestselling book worldwide on the college essay.

Raised in Spain, Ecuador, and Colombia, Ethan has studied at seventeen different schools and has worked as a teacher, curriculum writer, voice actor, motivational speaker, community organizer, and truck driver. He is a certified Myers-Briggs® specialist, and his type (ENFJ) will tell you that he will show up on time, that he’ll be excited to meet you, and that, more than anything, he is committed to—and an expert in—helping you realize your potential. 

A graduate of Northwestern University, Ethan holds an MFA from UC Irvine and two counseling certificates. He lives in Los Angeles with his beautiful wife, Veronica, and their amazing daughter, Zola.

You can reach Ethan at the following email: [email protected] and follow him on all of his social media outlets  at the following:

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How to Write a Personal Statement (A Crash Course)

By Ethan Sawyer, College Essay Guy

First, what even is the personal statement? It’s the ~650-word essay required by the Common Application (and other platforms), and its purpose is to demonstrate the skills, values, qualities, and interests you’ll bring to college.  

But it’s not a classic five-paragraph essay you write for English class. Here are some other ways a personal statement differs from an English class essay:

What Makes a Personal Statement Great? 📋

Colleges are looking for a lot of things when they read through your application, but the personal statement brings a few special things to the table. I believe college admission officers are looking for these four things in personal statements:

• Core Values: What do you care most about?
• Insight (aka “so what” moments): Can you think critically?
• Vulnerability: Is your essay personal?
• Craft: Has the essay gone through several revision drafts?

Want to learn more about what makes a personal statement great? Head here.

Okay, but how do you actually do this in your personal statement?

First, Brainstorm Some Quality Content 🧠

When a student begins the process, I ask them to complete the following exercises. So open a blank Google doc (or download a copy of my template here ).

Don’t skip these! You’re about to generate a bunch of great content (i.e., super cool details about you) for your personal statement.

• Essence Objects Exercise : 12 min.
• Values Exercise : 4 min.
• 21 Details Exercise : 20 min.
• Everything I Want Colleges to Know About Me Exercise : 20 min.
• The Feelings and Needs Exercise : 15-20 min.

Choosing an Essay Topic & Structure 🏗️

I teach two different ways to structure your essay: Montage and Narrative.

Montage Structure 📸

Montage essays present a series of qualities, experiences, or moments that are thematically linked, allowing students to show multiple sides of themselves that may not otherwise fit into a single narrative arc.

How do you find a common theme for your essay?

There are so many ways. But as you look back through your brainstorming sheet, look for:

• “I love/I know”: It could be something you love or know a lot about, as in the “ Food ” essay.
• Academic/career interests: Your essay could explain why you’re interested in a particular career, as in the “ Behavioral Economics ” and “ Flying ” essays.
• Identity/ies: Or you could choose a particular identity and focus on that, as in the “ Punk Rock Philosopher ” essay.

If you prefer brainstorming co-working videos, here’s how to find 7 ideas in 20 minutes .

Once you have a topic in mind, brainstorm 4-7 values that connect back to your theme, then for each value, list a specific way it manifests in your life.

Example: If you write about repairing cars (something you love), maybe that connects to your family values, literature, curiosity, adventure, and personal growth. Once you have those values, brainstorm a specific example of each value in your life.

Narrative Structure 📖

A Narrative Structure personal statement focuses on a challenge that fundamentally changed your life.

Heads up: Most students *don’t* have such a challenge, and by the way, you totally don’t have to write about a challenge to have a great personal statement.

To brainstorm a challenge-based essay (or decide if a challenge you’ve faced is essay-worthy), I recommend the Feelings and Needs exercise . In about 20 minutes you should have a basic outline for your essay.

Once you’ve done that, create a basic outline:

• Challenges + Effects (~⅓ of your essay)
• What I Did About It (~⅓ of your essay)
• What I Learned (~⅓ of your essay)

Writing & Revising 😮‍💨

Once you have a basic outline, it’s time to write. Don’t worry too much about word count and grammar on your first draft. Set a timer and go.

Then you’ll revise (and revise, and revise ...)

This process is all about revisions, in fact, and in my experience, it’s common for an essay to go through at least five drafts.

Here are a few questions you (or a trusted friend/mentor) can use when revising:

Does my narrative outline/essay ...

• Make clear what the challenges I faced were?
• Make clear how these challenges affected me?
• Make clear In what ways I was able to overcome these challenges?
• Make clear what these experiences taught me.

Does my montage outline/essay ...

• Have a precise topic or thematic thread?
• Provide specific examples in each paragraph that are linked to my clear topic/thematic thread?
• Provide solid examples of my values?
• Give a solid answer to the readers “so what” concerning my experiences and values?

This guide to Revising Your Essay in 5 Steps will help you navigate some of the revision process. When you’re ready, put your essay through the Great College Essay Test .

Looking for more in-depth, step-by-step instructions on writing the personal statement? Check out my free guide here .

For more advice on the rest of your college application , check out these amazing Pinterest Boards!

Guide Outline

Related content, 11 tips for early action and early decision, summer opportunities to improve your college applications, how to contact admissions officers, early action vs. early decision: what's the difference, how to complete the activities section on common app, 7 steps to submitting the common app.

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Essays About Values: 5 Essay Examples Plus 10 Prompts

Similar to how our values guide us, let this guide with essays about values and writing prompts help you write your essay.

Values are the core principles that guide the actions we take and the choices we make. They are the cornerstones of our identity. On a community or organizational level, values are the moral code that every member must embrace to live harmoniously and work together towards shared goals. 

We acquire our values from different sources such as parents, mentors, friends, cultures, and experiences. All of these build on one another — some rejected as we see fit — for us to form our perception of our values and what will lead us to a happy and fulfilled life.

5 Essay Examples

1. what today’s classrooms can learn from ancient cultures by linda flanagan, 2. stand out to your hiring panel with a personal value statement by maggie wooll, 3. make your values mean something by patrick m. lencioni, 4. how greed outstripped need by beth azar, 5. a shift in american family values is fueling estrangement by joshua coleman, 1. my core values, 2. how my upbringing shaped my values, 3. values of today’s youth, 4. values of a good friend, 5. an experience that shaped your values, 6. remembering our values when innovating, 7. important values of school culture, 8. books that influenced your values, 9. religious faith and moral values, 10. schwartz’s theory of basic values.

“Connectedness is another core value among Maya families, and teachers seek to cultivate it… While many American teachers also value relationships with their students, that effort is undermined by the competitive environment seen in many Western classrooms.”

Ancient communities keep their traditions and values of a hands-off approach to raising their kids. They also preserve their hunter-gatherer mindsets and others that help their kids gain patience, initiative, a sense of connectedness, and other qualities that make a helpful child.

“How do you align with the company’s mission and add to its culture? Because it contains such vital information, your personal value statement should stand out on your resume or in your application package.”

Want to rise above other candidates in the jobs market? Then always highlight your value statement. A personal value statement should be short but still, capture the aspirations and values of the company. The essay provides an example of a captivating value statement and tips for crafting one.

“Values can set a company apart from the competition by clarifying its identity and serving as a rallying point for employees. But coming up with strong values—and sticking to them—requires real guts.”

Along with the mission and vision, clear values should dictate a company’s strategic goals. However, several CEOs still needed help to grasp organizational values fully. The essay offers a direction in setting these values and impresses on readers the necessity to preserve them at all costs. 

“‘He compared the values held by people in countries with more competitive forms of capitalism with the values of folks in countries that have a more cooperative style of capitalism… These countries rely more on strategic cooperation… rather than relying mostly on free-market competition as the United States does.”

The form of capitalism we have created today has shaped our high value for material happiness. In this process, psychologists said we have allowed our moral and ethical values to drift away from us for greed to take over. You can also check out these essays about utopia .

“From the adult child’s perspective, there might be much to gain from an estrangement: the liberation from those perceived as hurtful or oppressive, the claiming of authority in a relationship, and the sense of control over which people to keep in one’s life. For the mother or father, there is little benefit when their child cuts off contact.”

It is most challenging when the bonds between parent and child weaken in later years. Psychologists have been navigating this problem among modern families, which is not an easy conflict to resolve. It requires both parties to give their best in humbling themselves and understanding their loved ones, no matter how divergent their values are. 

10 Writing  Prompts On Essays About Values

For this topic prompt, contemplate your non-negotiable core values and why you strive to observe them at all costs. For example, you might value honesty and integrity above all else. Expound on why cultivating fundamental values leads to a happy and meaningful life. Finally, ponder other values you would like to gain for your future self. Write down how you have been practicing to adopt these aspired values. 

Many of our values may have been instilled in us during childhood. This essay discusses the essential values you gained from your parents or teachers while growing up. Expound on their importance in helping you flourish in your adult years. Then, offer recommendations on what households, schools, or communities can do to ensure that more young people adopt these values.

Is today’s youth lacking essential values, or is there simply a shift in what values generations uphold? Strive to answer this and write down the healthy values that are emerging and dying. Then think of ways society can preserve healthy values while doing away with bad ones. Of course, this change will always start at home, so also encourage parents, as role models, to be mindful of their words, actions and behavior.  

The greatest gift in life is friendship. In this essay, enumerate the top values a friend should have. You may use your best friend as an example. Then, cite the best traits your best friend has that have influenced you to be a better version of yourself. Finally, expound on how these values can effectively sustain a healthy friendship in the long term. 

We all have that one defining experience that has forever changed how we see life and the values we hold dear. Describe yours through storytelling with the help of our storytelling guide . This experience may involve a decision, a conversation you had with someone, or a speech you heard at an event.  

With today’s innovation, scientists can make positive changes happen. But can we truly exercise our values when we fiddle with new technologies whose full extent of positive and adverse effects we do not yet understand such as AI? Contemplate this question and look into existing regulations on how we curb the creation or use of technologies that go against our values. Finally, assess these rules’ effectiveness and other options society has. 

Highlight a school’s role in honing a person’s values. Then, look into the different aspects of your school’s culture. Identify which best practices distinct in your school are helping students develop their values. You could consider whether your teachers exhibit themselves as admirable role models or specific parts of the curriculum that help you build good character. 

In this essay, recommend your readers to pick up your favorite books, particularly those that served as pathways to enlightening insights and values. To start, provide a summary of the book’s story. It would be better if you could do so without revealing too much to avoid spoiling your readers’ experience. Then, elaborate on how you have applied the values you learned from the book.

For many, religious faith is the underlying reason for their values. For this prompt, explore further the inextricable links between religion and values. If you identify with a certain religion, share your thoughts on the values your sector subscribes to. You can also tread the more controversial path on the conflicts of religious values with socially accepted beliefs or practices, such as abortion. 

Dive deeper into the ten universal values that social psychologist Shalom Schwartz came up with: power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security. Look into their connections and conflicts against each other. Then, pick your favorite value and explain how you relate to it the most. Also, find if value conflicts within you, as theorized by Schwartz.

Make sure to check out our round-up of the best essay checkers . If you want to use the latest grammar software, read our guide on using an AI grammar checker .

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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Home — Essay Samples — Philosophy — Values of Life — My Personal Values in Life

My Personal Values in Life

• Categories: Values of Life

About this sample

Words: 773 |

Published: Jan 31, 2024

Words: 773 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, body paragraph 1: personal value 1, body paragraph 2: personal value 2, body paragraph 3: personal value 3, counterargument.

• Adler, M. J. (2000). The four dimensions of philosophy: Metaphysical, moral, objective, categorical. Routledge.
• Miller, W. R., & Thoresen, C. E. (2003). Spirituality, religion, and health: An emerging research field. American Psychologist, 58(1), 24-35.
• Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford University Press.

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