Are You Living Your Values?

I was sitting on the beach, watching the ocean, contemplating. Something I value immensely: giving your thoughts and ideas the space to emerge without rushing to an answer. And as I contemplated, my mind wandered to the question, ‘What do we value?’

Values quietly shape our behaviour. They influence what we prioritise, what we tolerate, what we move toward and what we walk away from. They weave into far more of our lives than we often realise — the homes we create, the conversations we linger in, the work that nourishes us, the clothes we wear, the music we listen to, the food we eat, and even our self-talk.

This is because our values act as a filter through which we make decisions, asking, perhaps unconsciously:

When We Don’t Know Our Values

If we haven’t spent time consciously defining our values, or we think we know what we value but don’t act on it, the result can be a quiet discontent – with our lives, the people around us, our work – because without realising, we have let other people’s values dictate the way we show up.

For example, perhaps creativity is something you value deeply, but the people around you have always treated it as a luxury, something frivolous, not a real priority. So quietly, without quite deciding to, you stopped making room for it. Or perhaps honesty is a core value, but you find yourself making choices that don’t quite align with what you truly want, going along with things, saying yes when you mean no, and slowly drifting from your own truth.

This is why so much internal conflict comes from living in ways that no longer align with what we genuinely value.

Past, Present, and Future Values

What makes values particularly interesting is that they are not fixed. They evolve as we do.

Some values belong to who we have been. Some reflect who we are now. And some belong to the person we want to become.

One of the most useful questions we can ask when working with values is not simply ‘What do I value now?’ but ‘Who do I want to be?’ And what would that version of me value?

That question changes the way we approach growth entirely.

Once you become clear on the values of the person you are growing toward, you can begin using those values as a framework for your decisions and goals. If the future version of you values courage, what decisions would require courage now? If they value discipline, what habits need to shift? If they value calmness, honesty or self-respect, how would those values shape the way you move through your days?

Values stop being ideas and start becoming a compass.

Often the gap between where we are and where we want to be is not a lack of knowledge. It is that our daily behaviours are still aligned with an older identity rather than the person we are trying to become.

This is why revisiting values regularly is so useful. 

Not as an exercise in self-judgement, but as a way of asking: is this still true for me? Does this still reflect who I am? Am I holding onto something that belonged to an earlier version of myself? Have I been trying to claim a value that sounds impressive but isn’t really who I am? Have I been reluctant to own a value because I thought it might reflect badly on who I am? And so on… really spend time evaluating your current values and asking, ‘What values are true for the next phase of my life?’

Values And Wellbeing

This is why values feel so connected to health and wellbeing.

Wellbeing is not simply about habits, routines or following the right set of rules. It is about the relationship between your choices and what genuinely matters to you.

When people truly value themselves, they make different decisions. They care for themselves differently. They become more intentional about what they allow into their lives and what they no longer tolerate.

Real change often begins not with forcing ourselves into someone else’s idea of who we should be, but with becoming clearer about what matters to us and allowing those values to shape the way we live.

So perhaps this is worth spending a little time with.

Because once you know that, you can begin making decisions from that place rather than simply reacting to life as it comes.

And over time, those decisions shape identity.

Values are not just something we think about. They are something we live.

Values are part of our curriculum – we learn how they are important for aligning clients’ goals, how they help with decision-making, and how to discover our values. To read more about our curriculum, please click here.