I’ve spent the better part of two decades working with values — running workshops with organizations like PwC, Shell, Electronic Arts, building the Values Institute, and writing Start With Values (Penguin, 2025). In that time, I’ve tried just about every values assessment on the market. Some are genuinely excellent. Some are dressed-up personality tests with the word “values” bolted on.
This guide is my honest take on the best free options available right now — what they are, what makes them worth your time, and who they’re best suited for. I’ve kept the research context in because it matters, but this isn’t a textbook. It’s a recommendation from someone who lives and breathes this stuff.
If you want to skip straight to the list of free assessments, go ahead. But if you’ve never really thought about why values assessments work, the context below is worth two minutes of your time.
Why Discover Your Values?
Most of us have felt it — that low-level friction when something in our work or life doesn’t sit right. We can feel the misalignment before we can name it. Sometimes we call this feeling “stress” — and it runs in the background, slowly draining our battery. The end state of chronic values misalignment is… burnout.
Values work is the process of discovering what matters and then being more intentional about aligning our lives around these values.
What I’ve seen consistently, across thousands of workshop participants, is that people don’t need to overhaul their lives once they get clear on their values. They just need to see more clearly. Values don’t tell you to quit your job or end a relationship. They give you the self-awareness to make small, deliberate shifts toward a life that actually feels like yours.
Some people are resistant to this kind of reflection — worried, perhaps, about what they might find. I’d gently push back on that. In my experience, clarity is almost always a relief, not a crisis. Using a well-designed assessment dramatically shortens the process of getting there.
Here are a few things that tend to shift when people get clear on their values:
- Self-awareness. You start to understand not just what you do, but why. That distinction changes everything — from how you make decisions to how you manage stress.
- Goal-setting and decision-making. Goals set without values are easy to abandon. Goals that express your values are genuinely motivating. The difference is significant.
- Relationships. Understanding your own values makes you a better listener and a clearer communicator. It also makes conflict easier to navigate — because you can see what’s actually at stake for yourself and the other person.
- Behavior change. Values-based micro-habits help us overcome resistance to change by gradually scaling up positive habits into our daily routine.
Start with values discovery → create micro-habits → make clearer decisions → increase trust and connection.
A Brief History of Values Assessments
Humans have been wrestling with what matters most for as long as we’ve been thinking. But the formal study of values really took shape in the early 20th century, through the work of psychologists like Carl Jung and Abraham Maslow. It wasn’t until the 1960s that values assessments became a structured tool, largely thanks to social psychologist Milton Rokeach, whose Rokeach Value Survey laid the groundwork for much of what followed.
Since then, the field has evolved significantly — from paper-based surveys to AI-driven personalization tools. The underlying question hasn’t changed: what do you actually care about, and are you living accordingly?
Research into Values Assessments
The research is clear and consistent. Values assessments work.
A landmark study by Feather (1975) confirmed that the Rokeach Value Survey held up across cultures. Meglino and Ravlin (1998) found that people whose personal values aligned with those of their organization were more cooperative, more committed, and more engaged. Sagiv and Schwartz (2000) showed a meaningful link between values orientation and wellbeing — with people who prioritized self-transcendence (contributing to others, the world) reporting higher life satisfaction than those focused primarily on self-enhancement.
More recently, researchers at the University of California found that people who actively affirm their values show significantly lower cortisol responses to stress. This isn’t soft science. Values clarity is a genuine resilience and well-being enabler.
Free Values Assessments
Here are the tools I’d actually recommend — listed roughly in order of where I’d point someone who’s just starting out.
The Values Assessment — Values Institute
This is the one I built, so take that with whatever grain of salt you like. But I built it because I couldn’t find a tool that did what I wanted: one that goes beyond ranking a list and actually helps you turn your values into action. It covers 4 categories and 48 values, takes 10–15 minutes, and sends you a personalized Values Action Plan straight to your inbox. It’s free, and it’s grounded in the same framework behind Start With Values. If you’re new to this, start here.
The List of Values — Values Institute
Sometimes people just want to browse. This article includes several detailed lists of values plus a downloadable PDF worksheet — useful for reflection, journaling, or facilitated workshops. Good as a complement to any of the assessments below.
Personal Values Assessment — PersonalValu.es
A newer tool that’s been gaining visibility — and for good reason. It uses a comparison-based methodology (forcing trade-offs between values rather than asking you to self-rate), which tends to surface your real priorities rather than your aspirational ones. Clean interface, quick to complete, and free. Worth trying alongside one of the more established tools to see where your results converge.
Schwartz Values Survey
Developed by Shalom H. Schwartz, this is one of the most rigorously validated tools in the field — used in hundreds of academic studies across dozens of countries. It identifies ten basic human values and how they relate to each other. Less warm and accessible than some of the others, but if you want a tool grounded in decades of cross-cultural research, this is it.
VIA Character Strengths Survey
Built on the work of Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson, the VIA focuses on 24 character strengths rather than values per se — but there’s significant overlap. I often recommend this alongside a values tool because strengths and values together give you a much richer picture of who you are and how you operate. Free, with a solid feedback report.
Personal Values Assessment — Barrett Values Centre
Richard Barrett’s framework is well-established in the organizational development world. This free tool identifies your values across ten categories and offers insight into how your personal values intersect with your decision-making and wellbeing. Strong for people in leadership roles who want to bridge personal and professional values.
Life Values Inventory
Co-developed by Dr. Kelly Crace and Dr. Clayton Lafferty, the LVI takes a broad view — mapping your values across personal, family, work, health, and community domains. If you want to understand how your values play out differently in different areas of your life, this is particularly useful.
Core Values Index (CVI) — Taylor Protocols
The full CVI isn’t free, but an abbreviated version is. The CVI takes a slightly different angle, focusing on innate motivational drives rather than a ranked list of values. It’s been around a long time and has a loyal following, particularly in coaching contexts.
Conclusion
The point of all this isn’t the assessment itself. The point is what you do after.
In my work — and in the research that underpins Start With Values — the gap isn’t between people who know their values and people who don’t. It’s between people who know their values and people who live them. That’s the harder, more interesting work.
Any of the tools above will give you a starting point. The Values Assessment is designed specifically to bridge that gap — to move you from insight to action. But the best assessment is the one you’ll actually complete and reflect on honestly.
Start somewhere. Start today.
