Rediscover yourself: How identifying values can guide your life
Find your way to better emotional well-being by connecting with your values
““Your personal identity comes from your values.””
Values are decision-making magic. When you know what yours are, you can better navigate your life.
They are things like: Creativity. Freedom. Purpose. Kindness. Curiosity. Love.
We once heard the idea that values are something that you can't put in a wheelbarrow — like integrity, wonder and creativity — but not like money, which could be represented by words such as safety, security, status, and belonging instead.
Indicators of meaning, of what matters to you, values are powerful when we connect with them. Values point the way to how you want to live your life, what you’d like it to contain, and how you want to spend your time. Even on what and with whom.
When your values are being met you are more fulfilled and happier. But often in life when you are not achieving something that matters to you this can be because it conflicts with your values. Feelings of disconnection, emptiness, frustration, anger, or just the sense that something isn't quite right, suggest that those values you need do not yet have a place in your life.
But here’s the thing: although our values are deeply important and are threaded through our lives, often they can be maddeningly unconscious to us.
Discovering your values can be a one-off exercise (or a session with a coach like me) so that you can get to the small handful of values you want to live by (Brene Brown swears by having just 2).
So the first step is identifying them.
Something to Try
Here are a handful of words. Choose any that spark something in you:
Adventure Community Fairness Health Kindness Play
Authenticity Courage Friendship Honesty Laughter Respect
Beauty Empathy Growth Innovation Love Tranquility
What resonates? What’s missing?
Book a Values Assessment
Want to explore more? Book a 1:1 online coaching session to capture what your values might be, and learn how discovering them can help you find your way.
““Nobody has passion and perseverance unless what they do aligns with their values.” ”
Where do you want to begin?
Curious about coaching? Discover what it really is and how it might help you navigate your everyday life.
Before I became certified as a coach I had some ideas about what this profession was — big personalities, large audiences, lots of ‘motivational speaking’ — so much so that I hesitated to train for a very long time. Finding coaches who were nothing like this — who listened, created a safe space, and challenged yes, but supported also — led me to rethink some of my biases.
You may also have some thoughts about who coaches are and what they (or rather we now) do, so I thought I’d try and dispel some of your own myths.
Or maybe you haven’t come across this helping profession — you’re more familiar with its sister practitioners counseling, therapy, or mentoring. Maybe you are curious to just know more. Hopefully, this helps you gain an inkling of what it is and if you would benefit from coaching,
So what is coaching?
The ICF (the prestigious international accrediting body) defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”
But what I love about coaching is that we (the coach and the client) co-create the experience together. See sessions as a structured conversation, where the coach walks by your side.
Coaching is client-driven – you set the focus of the session – and the coach partners with you to identify what you want to explore, facilitate new insight and learning, and find a way to create what you need in your life.
And it’s non-directional – which means that the coach won’t tell you what to do – but will hold the space for you to think and discover, clarify and align with what you want to achieve in your life. The coach’s role is to encourage reflection and self-discovery, help you reach strategies and solutions for your life, and to hold you accountable where you need this.
Sessions can be exploratory, giving space for you to think and reflect (maybe for the first time), and enabling you to take your thoughts in new directions.
Or sessions might be more goal focused, formulating the steps to take you from where you are to where you want to be while figuring out the resources, support, and skills you need to get you there.
You may end a session with something to work on or something to process, or a shift in how to show up in your world and how you think about it.
And what coaching isn’t.
This is key: It’s not consulting, therapy, counseling, or mentoring. In coaching sessions you can work in depth – you may touch on limiting beliefs, learning from earlier experiences, and even relational dynamics – but you’ll do this in a forward-focused way and in relation to a goal or a desired change.
If during sessions, you or your coach feel that you are better served by someone else (like a trauma-informed coach or a psychotherapist), or a resource outside of the coaching practice, these may be suggested to you.
How do I work?
In my training, I learned how to coach the whole person and work holistically across different coaching approaches and modalities, including Positive Psychology, Transactional Analysis, and Neuroscience, which help to understand what it means to be a person in this world, and how we can possibly do life with all that life can contain. As a Trainee Emotions Coach Practitioner, I'm learning how to help clients make contact with the full range of their emotions and use this awareness to bring insights and shifts to their lives.
In our sessions together, clients can be assured of a safe space, thoughtful inquiry, and openness to what they would like to bring. My approach is always shaped by courage and compassion (and challenge framed within both if needed).
5 expansive questions to ask yourself:
In coaching sessions, you’ll be asked some situationally-appropriate questions to bring more awareness into your life, like these:
Where are you now in your life?
Where would you like to be?
What sits in the gap between the two?
Where do you want the first steps to take you?
What’s most meaningful to you in your life? Is this showing up in ways you like?
Grab a pen and paper and take a moment to answer these. Is anything coming up for you? Any new learning?
If you had the opportunity to be coached, how would you like to use it?
If you’re interested in knowing more, finding out how coaching can specifically help you, and curious about how to move forwards in your life, let’s chat (sounds scary but really it’s just a conversation to get to know each other and find out how we can best work together). Or check out some options for 1:1 coaching here.