Value Alignment - Start honoring what truly matters

Aligning with your values to live intentionally

As you traverse through your 20s and 30s, there are so many opinions and expectations of how you should lead your life that it can be disorienting. You’re going along with what everyone else is doing and what you think you “should” be doing. One day, you wake up and realize that something feels off, and that you’ve left a giant piece of who you are behind. 

This feeling of unfulfillment often comes down to one key issue: You’re not living in alignment with your true values.

There could be a few things at play: Your values haven’t been properly defined, they’re the wrong ones and are leading you astray, you aren’t honoring your values through your actions, or there could be hidden values that you haven’t identified yet and that you are betraying.

For example, an important value of mine is personal growth, but in the past, I was completely ignoring this driving force in my fulfillment. I spent much of my free time mindlessly playing video games and not growing at all, leading me to feel depressed. I wasn’t being true to a deep value of mine, and honestly, at the time, I didn’t even realize that is what was happening. It was a hidden value, subconsciously causing a discord within me.

Furthermore, freedom has always been an important value to me. But in the past, I thought that meant financial freedom, and that is the only metric that I used to measure my alignment with this value. Instead of going after things that I wanted to do and that would make me truly free, I was suffering in jobs I hated because it was paying me well and satisfying my misconception that financial freedom was vital to me. Ironically, this led me to feeling the exact opposite of free. This value was leading me astray because it wasn’t properly defined.

These realizations made me stop and consciously take note: What is important to me that I am currently not honoring in my day-to-day life? How can I re-define pre-existing values to really get at the essence of what drives me? And lastly, what actions can I take and habits can I build that align with these values?

I came up with four values that intertwine with one another and that I now use to steer my behaviors and life: 

1. Freedom (re-defined): I shifted my idea of what freedom meant to me. I realized that financial freedom is still important, and that’s great, but it’s not all there was to it. What I really wanted was emotional and mental freedom — putting myself out there, trying new things, being myself, etc. I didn’t want to be controlled by others’ perceptions or my own self-limiting beliefs.

   
   

2. Integrity: What I mean by this is walking the talk. Staying true to what I say I’m going to do and staying true to myself. Rather than just saying I’d love to start a coaching business, actually doing it, and pursuing that intuitive pull I had towards it rather than easily ignoring it. Or, following my passion in magic and openly sharing it with others without fear of judgment.

   
   
   
   

3. Accomplishment: But not in the standard definition. I value accomplishing goals that are important to me and that might seem small and insignificant to others. Could be a daily pushup challenge, establishing a journaling habit, coaching my son’s baseball team, or many others. 

   
   

4. Personal growth: All of the above falls under the umbrella of personal growth, but it’s an important overarching guideline for me. I need to find ways to challenge myself and learn, rather than what I was doing by coasting, playing video games, and staying put in the same job. As long as I see small progress each day, I know I’m satisfying this value.

Once I established this clear framework and really identified and properly defined what drives me, then the actions and habits that fell under each one followed. I consciously found ways to make sure that I’m taking action towards these values and shining a light on them through various side projects, mindsets, and behaviors each day.

When I started to live in this alignment, I found my quality of life and my overall levels of happiness dramatically took off. I feel energized to do each of these things because I know they’re honoring who I truly am, and not just honoring an external expectation or what others think I “should” be doing.

This is a huge facet of my approach to coaching. With my clients, I help them go through this process of identifying their values, redefining previous values, and then the final step, establishing habits and actions they can take to live them out.

Before long, you’ll find each day becomes more filled with intention and purpose, and you’ll be excited about each day because you know you’ve set aside time to do things that speak to your innermost being. This alignment will also help you through major life decisions and change: If you’re clear on what fulfills you, you can more easily make decisions and take the leap needed.

Are you ready to start living a more intentional and fulfilling life by aligning with your values? Reach out to schedule a consultation call and take the first steps on this journey.