A small piece of paper with 'blank is what matters' written on it.

Career development is about much more than finding a job. In the broadest sense, it means engaging in a process to get to know yourself and your goals better, and then deciding your best path to pursuing those goals.

Whether you’re still in high school and imaging what work will look like in your future, or if you’re nearing retirement and thinking about what life will look like when you’re no longer working, you can benefit from learning more about yourself and more about the options available to you for the next stage of your journey.

There are many exercises and activities to help you get to know yourself better. In this post, I’m sharing a simple one that helps you to identify values that are important to you. I learned it from some colleagues in my university job, where we often run this exercise with new students in their first few weeks of college.

Get a piece of paper, and write this prompt:

____ is what matters.

Next, fill in the blank with what comes to mind for you. It can be a single word or a long phrase. Just answer honestly for yourself: what is it that matters to you?

Finally, take a few minutes to reflect and journal about your answer. Where does this already show up in your life? Where would you like to see it more? What can you change to see this show up more in your life?

Identifying and reflecting on what matters to us, however we define it, is the first step toward articulating our values. Values are what we hold most dear, the things most important to us—common values include family, respect, peace, social justice. Being able to know and list our values can help us with finding jobs that align with them and to experience deeper meaning and fulfillment from our work.