What is values identification?

Values identification is a concept in personal epistemology: Your most meaningful experiences — moments of flow, deep satisfaction, or profound engagement — are reliable indicators of your core values.

Example: You remember three moments from the past year with unusual clarity: an afternoon teaching a junior colleague something difficult, a weekend building a side project nobody asked for, and a conversation where someone trusted you with something they hadn't told anyone else. You didn't plan any of them. They weren't on your goals list. But each one left you feeling alive in a way that your actual goals — the promotion, the salary milestone — did not. Those three moments are telling you something your conscious mind hasn't articulated yet: you value mentorship, creative autonomy, and deep trust more than status or financial advancement.

This concept is part of Phase 32 (Value Identification) in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for value identification.