I’ve spent the last twenty years studying courage, vulnerability, and shame, and I can tell you one thing with absolute certainty: The journey to wholehearted living begins with the courage to know ourselves. When I started this work, I didn’t understand how fundamentally important self-knowledge would be—not just academically, but as the foundation for living a brave life. The tools we’re going to explore today—psychometric assessments for values, personality, motivation, and culture—aren’t just interesting personality quizzes. At their best, they’re invitations to show up, be seen, and live braver lives with our whole hearts.
The Courage to Know Ourselves
Here’s what I know for sure: We cannot practice love and belonging, purpose and meaning, unless we’re willing to get honest about who we are. This requires vulnerability—the willingness to step into uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. Psychometric assessments create structured spaces for this vulnerability, giving us language for experiences and tendencies we might otherwise struggle to articulate. They don’t define us or put us in boxes—rather, they give us starting points for the messy, beautiful work of self-discovery.
What makes this work both challenging and worthwhile is that it requires us to let go of who we think we should be in order to embrace who we actually are. That’s not easy in a world filled with “never enough” messages. But as the data from my research consistently shows, the people who live wholehearted lives are those who have the courage to own their stories and stand in their truth.
Values: The Heartbeat of Our Authentic Lives
When I talk about values, I don’t mean the aspirational list of words we put on our vision boards. I mean the behaviors that, when we’re living into them, help us feel the most alive and authentic. The PVQ values test offers a framework for identifying these core values—whether they’re connection, courage, creativity, or contribution. What matters isn’t which values you identify, but how clearly you can articulate them and how consistently you can live them.
I love to ask people in my workshops, “If I followed you around with a camera for a day, would I see your stated values in action?” It’s a confronting question because it highlights the gap that often exists between what we say matters and how we actually spend our time and energy. This gap is the birthplace of shame and disengagement. When we make choices that align with our authentic values, we experience what I call “integration”—a sense of wholeness and congruence. When we betray these values, we feel the pain of disconnection.
The beauty of using a structured tool like the PVQ values test is that it helps us cut through the “shoulds” and expectations to identify what truly matters to us. It’s an act of self-compassion to get clear on your values because it allows you to make choices from a place of authenticity rather than from fear or external pressure.
Personality: Embracing Our Unique Wiring
I’m not naturally a big fan of labeling. In my research, I’ve seen how quickly we can use categories to judge others and ourselves. But I’ve also come to appreciate how understanding our personality patterns can be liberating. When we use quick personality tests or more comprehensive assessments not as definitive statements about who we are but as mirrors that reflect patterns in how we show up, they become tools for self-compassion rather than self-judgment.
What we’re really talking about when we discuss personality is our unique way of engaging with the world. Are you energized by social connection or solitary reflection? Do you process information through concrete details or broad patterns? Do you make decisions based primarily on logical analysis or on impact to people? These tendencies aren’t flaws to fix or virtues to celebrate—they’re simply aspects of our humanity.
In my work with leaders and teams, I’ve found that understanding personality differences creates pathways to empathy. When we recognize that someone isn’t being deliberately difficult but is simply operating from a different set of innate tendencies, we can approach difference with curiosity rather than judgment. This same compassionate curiosity is what we need to bring to understanding our own personality traits.
Motivation: Uncovering What Drives Us Forward
One of the most powerful questions we can ask ourselves is, “What moves me?” Not what should move me, not what moves others, but what genuinely energizes and compels me forward. When we assess motivation patterns, we’re getting curious about the landscapes of our internal world—where is the energy, where is the resistance, where is the flow?
The data shows that we’re at our best when our motivation is intrinsic—when we’re driven by internal satisfaction, purpose, and meaning rather than external rewards or pressure. But identifying our authentic motivations requires vulnerability because it often means acknowledging desires and drives that may not match external expectations or norms.
I think about the clients I’ve worked with who spent decades in careers that looked successful on paper but left them feeling empty inside. The turning point for many came when they had the courage to really assess their motivation—to ask whether they were climbing a ladder propped against someone else’s wall. This self-assessment isn’t selfish; it’s necessary. Because when we’re connected to authentic motivation, we show up with more creativity, resilience, and generosity.
Cultural Context: Understanding Our Stories
We don’t develop in isolation. Our values, personality, and motivations take shape within specific cultural contexts—family systems, ethnic traditions, religious communities, regional differences. These contexts shape the narratives available to us and influence which parts of ourselves we feel safe to express.
Cultural assessment helps us understand the water we’re swimming in. It invites us to examine the messages we’ve internalized about what makes someone worthy, what constitutes success, how emotions should be expressed, and countless other assumptions that shape our daily choices. This examination isn’t about rejecting our cultural inheritance wholesale, but about choosing consciously which aspects serve our wholehearted living and which aspects might need to be reimagined.
In my research, I’ve found that a lack of awareness about cultural conditioning often leads to shame. We blame ourselves for struggles that are actually rooted in cultural contradictions or impossible standards. Cultural assessment gives us perspective, helping us see where our personal challenges connect to larger systems and stories.
Integration: Weaving a Wholehearted Life
The real magic happens when we begin integrating these various insights—when we can see how our values, personality, motivations, and cultural contexts interact to create our unique way of being in the world. This integration isn’t about achieving some perfect alignment or resolving all tensions. It’s about developing what I call “shame resilience”—the ability to recognize the internal and external forces shaping our choices and to make those choices from a place of self-awareness and self-compassion.
Integration looks like recognizing patterns in your behavior and being able to say, “Oh, I see what’s happening here. When I’m stressed, my need for control (personality) goes into overdrive, which conflicts with my value of collaboration, especially because I was raised in a culture that prized individual achievement.” That kind of awareness creates choice where there was once only automatic reaction.
From Insight to Brave Action
Knowledge without action isn’t transformation—it’s just information. The ultimate purpose of all this self-assessment isn’t to create the perfect self-inventory; it’s to live more wholeheartedly. In my research, I’ve found that the people who experience the most joy and purpose are those who can translate self-knowledge into brave action.
Brave action might mean setting boundaries that honor your values. It might mean pursuing work that aligns with your authentic motivations even when that path looks different from what others expect. It might mean embracing aspects of your personality that you’ve previously judged as flaws. Whatever form it takes, brave action requires vulnerability—the willingness to be seen in your truth.
I often tell people that courage is contagious. When we have the courage to honor our authentic selves—as revealed through thoughtful self-assessment—we inspire others to do the same. We create spaces where people can show up without armor, where they can be both brave and vulnerable.
Embracing Imperfection: The Limitations of Self-Assessment
I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t acknowledge that all forms of self-assessment have limitations. They capture moments in time, rely on self-reporting (which is influenced by our blind spots), and inevitably simplify complex human experiences. The risk in any assessment is that we mistake the map for the territory—that we begin to see ourselves through the lens of categories and scores rather than recognizing our fundamental wholeness.
The antidote to this risk is what I call “the gift of imperfection”—the recognition that our messy humanity will never be fully captured by any framework or assessment. The most valuable approach treats these tools not as definitive statements but as flashlights that illuminate certain corners of our experience while leaving others in shadow. They’re most useful when held lightly, with curiosity rather than rigid attachment.
The Ongoing Journey: Becoming Braver Every Day
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from studying tens of thousands of stories, it’s that self-discovery isn’t a destination—it’s a practice. We don’t figure ourselves out once and for all. We continually unveil new layers, encounter new challenges, and develop new capacities for courage and connection.
Psychometric assessments like the PVQ values test, personality inventories, motivation analyses, and cultural frameworks offer structured touchpoints in this lifelong journey. They give us language for our experiences and frameworks for understanding patterns. But the real work happens in how we metabolize these insights—how we translate them into braver choices and more authentic connections.
The journey of self-discovery requires both courage and compassion. Courage to look honestly at ourselves, and compassion to embrace what we find there. In the words I’ve spoken in countless arenas and workshops: “You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.” Your willingness to get curious about yourself—to use tools like psychometric assessments not to judge yourself but to know yourself more fully—is an act of courage that ripples out far beyond your individual life.
So as you explore these various assessments, remember that the goal isn’t perfection or some idealized version of yourself. The goal is wholehearted living—showing up for your life with your whole heart, honoring your authentic self, and connecting from a place of worthiness. That journey is messy and imperfect, but it’s also where we find our most profound joy, purpose, and connection.