You say integrity matters to you. But somewhere in your life, you're compromising it, and you're not sure whether that means you were wrong about what you actually value, or whether you're just failing to live up to it. The question you're really asking is whether integrity belongs in your top tier at all.
Who This Is For
This is for you if you've already named integrity as something you care about and you're now noticing friction between that claim and what you're actually doing. You're not looking for a lecture on why you should be honest. You already believe honesty matters. What you need is clarity about whether it matters to you more than other things you're also trying to hold.
This is also for you if you suspect integrity might matter to you, but you're not certain because you've never tested it against real conflict. You say yes to something you don't believe in because you need the job. You tell a friend what they want to hear instead of what you think. You're wondering whether that makes you someone who doesn't actually value integrity, or someone who values other things more in that moment. Those are different questions, and they have different answers.
This is not for you if you're looking for moral instruction. If you want someone to tell you that integrity should be your top value and you should restructure your life around it. That's a reasonable thing to want, but it's not what this is. This is for people who want to know what they actually value, not what they should value.
What You Will Discover
Once you map where you really stand, you stop making the same choice over and over while wondering why it feels wrong. You see that when you compromised on honesty to protect your job, you weren't necessarily betraying a core value. You might have been honoring something else that ranks higher for you in that context: security, loyalty, or connection. That's not a character flaw. It's information. The cost is that you stop being able to tell yourself a story where you have no choice. But the payoff is that you actually do get to choose.
You also see where your values create real tension with each other. Schwartz's research on values structure, replicated across 80 countries, shows that some values sit adjacent to each other and reinforce each other, while others sit opposite and compete. If integrity and compassion both matter to you, they can live together. If integrity and power both matter to you, you will eventually have to choose. Knowing which tensions are real tensions in your value system, rather than character failures, changes how you make decisions going forward.
Common Reasons People Wait
Some people hesitate because they think the answer should be obvious. If integrity hasn't become automatic for you by now, the thinking goes, then taking an assessment won't fix it. That's true. But clarity isn't the same thing as willpower. You don't need to want integrity more. You need to know whether it actually ranks where you think it does, and what it's competing with. Once you see the structure, the choosing becomes visible.
Others wait because they're afraid the assessment will tell them something they don't want to know. That integrity isn't really their top value. That they care more about status, or comfort, or being liked than they care about being honest. The risk is real. But the alternative is spending years acting on an assumption about yourself that isn't true. Schwartz's research shows that most people hold multiple values that matter. You probably do too. Finding out what they actually are is better than guessing.
Some people wait because they think they need to fix the behavior first, then they'll take the assessment. You'll stop compromising on integrity, prove to yourself you can do it consistently, and then you'll be ready to name it as a value. That reverses the useful order. You need clarity about what you value before you can make sustainable change. Otherwise you're just forcing yourself to behave differently while remaining confused about why it matters.
The My Values assessment surfaces your values, ranks them, and shows you exactly where you are and are not living them.
Can someone have integrity as a value if they've lied in the past?
Yes. Schwartz's research shows that values exist on a spectrum and in relationship to other values. Someone can hold integrity as a genuine core value and still lie in situations where other values feel more urgent. The assessment shows you where you actually rank integrity relative to other things you care about, not whether you're perfectly consistent with it.
What does Schwartz's values framework actually measure?
Schwartz identified 10 universal value types based on research across 80 countries, organized in a circular structure where adjacent values support each other and opposite values create tension. His framework shows that most people genuinely hold multiple values that matter, and that understanding the relative importance and the tensions between them is more useful than trying to rank them as purely good or bad.
Will knowing my values actually change how I make decisions?
It changes how consciously you make them. If you're currently choosing without knowing what you're choosing between, you're operating on instinct or habit. Clarity lets you make the choice deliberately instead of stumbling into it. That's not guaranteed to make you "better," but it does make you less confused.
What if my values are different from what my family or profession expects?
That's the entire point of this. Most people discover that their actual values don't align perfectly with what they've been told to care about. That misalignment is not a problem to fix. It's information you need in order to make conscious decisions about where you're willing to compromise and where you're not.