Introduction
Are you out of alignment?
Are you experiencing feelings of unhappiness? Does your life feel like it lacks purpose? Are you overwhelmed by everything you must do? If so, the chances are that you may be out of alignment with your personal values.
Your values are the foundations of who you are. They’re the deep drivers that influence your decisions, relationships, and sense of fulfilment. When your life aligns with them, you feel grounded, confident, and purposeful. When it doesn’t, life can start to feel heavy, often in the form of stress, conflict, or a sense that you’re “just going through the motions.”
What are values?
Personal values are the things you believe matter most in life. They make up your inner compass and guide how you want to live and work. Values help you prioritise, shape your goals, and act as your quiet decision-makers, whether you notice them or not.
As one of my clients, Katy, reflected:
“Your values are what’s important to you. My family are the most important thing to me and so I have to work to earn a certain amount of money to provide for my family. It’s also being kind and being honest and doing the right thing.”
Where do values come from?
We usually pick up our early values from parents, teachers, and the environment we grow up in. Many of us unconsciously carry these through adulthood even if they no longer fit who we are today.
Sometimes, those inherited values can cause conflict. Rebecca, for example, realised through our work that her drive to please her parents was shaping her career choices. She shared:
“… I became more aware of my desire to please my parents and how often I would turn to them for advice. Understanding my values more made me realise that their values were quite different to mine and so their advice might not be the best advice for me.”
That awareness gave her the courage to make decisions independently, even ones she knew her parents wouldn’t agree with, because they weren’t living her life.
Why values matter so much
When your actions and behaviours align with your values, life feels lighter and more manageable. You feel able to meet challenges with strength because you’re standing on solid ground.
Rachel put it beautifully:
“Values helped to define me, and it helped to give a focus on what was important to me. The values that I have come away with have always been there, it’s just actually identifying them and the strength of those has really helped me to move forward to where I am now.”
Becky had a similar experience:
“Knowing my values really helped me to prioritise what was important to me. They helped me to identify where other people’s values were, both in professional and family life, and that helped me to understand them better.”
In short, values give you clarity. They help you:
- Prioritise what truly matters to you.
- Recognise where conflict comes from (often clashing values).
- Make decisions with greater confidence.
- Stay motivated and committed to your goals.
- Build stronger, more authentic relationships.
What happens when you ignore them?
Ignoring or being unaware of your values often leads to misalignment, a life that “looks fine” on the outside but feels heavy on the inside. You might find yourself:
- Saying “yes” when you want to say “no.”
- Pursuing goals that leave you flat rather than fulfilled.
- Feeling stressed or overwhelmed without quite knowing why.
- Living by others’ expectations rather than your own desires.
It’s not that you can’t make changes without knowing your values, but those changes are rarely sustainable. Sooner or later, misalignment shows up, and you feel the pull back to what matters most to you.
How do you uncover your values?
Identifying your values takes reflection and honesty. It’s about peeling back the “shoulds” that you’ve absorbed from family, work, or society, and getting to the heart of what really matters to you.
In my book, Women Reaching Their Emotional Limit: A workbook for managing overwhelm and achieving wellbeing, I take readers through a guided exercise that helps them clarify their personal values and apply them to their lives. The process isn’t always easy, but it’s always worthwhile.
👉 If you’d like to explore the full values exercise, you can find it in my book.
Moving forward: questions for reflection
Even without the full exercise, you can begin reflecting on your values today. Here are some guiding questions to get you started:
- Peak moments. Think of a time when you felt truly fulfilled and alive. What was happening? Which values were you honouring in that moment?
- Anger and frustration. Recall a situation that made you feel frustrated, resentful, or drained. Which value was being crossed or ignored?
- Admiration. Who do you admire most, and why? The qualities you admire in others often reflect your own core values.
- Alignment check. Looking at your week ahead, which activities feel aligned with your values? Which don’t? What small shift could you make?
- Non-negotiables. What would you never compromise on, no matter the circumstance?
These questions won’t give you a complete picture straight away, but they’ll start to bring clarity. Awareness is the first step toward change.
Final thought
Your values are already within you. They don’t need to be invented, they need to be uncovered. Once you identify them, you’ll be better equipped to make decisions that feel right, reduce overwhelm, and create a life that feels like yours.
As I often remind my clients:
When your life is aligned with your values, you don’t just survive, you thrive.