How to identify your principles?

An exercise that can help and one that comes highly recommended by @GlenM is the end-of-life exercise.

Trigger Warning - Mention of Death and Funeral

This is taken from 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey:

Began with the end in mind

Imagine you are going to a funeral but when you reach there, you notice that people are talking about you and when you walk upto the casket, you see yourself. It is your funeral!

During the ceremony, four people will be talking about. These four people are:

• Close family member
• Good friend
• Work colleague
• Someone from a club or organization you were involved in
  

Think about what exactly these speeches will look like. What will they say about your accomplishments and contributions?

Consider what they have to say about you and you will find your definition of true success and from there you can decide which principles truly align with your definition of success. For example, you may wish to choose something like ‘Honesty, Trustworthiness, Integrity’ etc

Take a few minutes to complete the exercise and write down the principles that matter most to you. It is recommended that you write it down on a sheet of paper or a document online that can be used for later steps as well.