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Finding Greater Alignment Between Values and Work
Your values become visible through the choices you make each day.
Sofia had spent time clarifying what mattered most to her. Creativity. Collaboration. Balance. On paper, those values felt right. But when she looked at an ordinary week, she noticed something uncomfortable. Her calendar told a very different story.
Meetings filled most of her days. Creative work was squeezed into whatever time remained. She regularly answered emails after dinner, even though she kept telling herself she wanted firmer boundaries around work.
For many women in STEM*, this disconnect can happen quietly. You know what matters to you, but competing priorities, workplace expectations, and sheer busyness can make it difficult for those values to show up in daily life.
Aligning your actions with your values is less about making dramatic changes and more about noticing where your time, energy, and decisions do or do not reflect what matters to you.
If you enjoy grounded reflections on creativity, work, and well-being, you can subscribe to The Creative Shift here.
This blog explores what values alignment can look like in real life, why misalignment can feel so draining, and how a few reflective practices can help you make choices that feel more like your own.
*Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
WHY ALIGNING ACTIONS WITH VALUES MATTERS
Your values act like internal reference points. They reflect what matters to you, how you want to live, and what you want your decisions to stand for.
The difficulty is that knowing your values and living them are two different things.
You may value rest but repeatedly work through lunch. You may value creativity but fill every open space with administration. You may value connection but keep postponing time with people who matter to you.
None of this means your values are false. It means everyday pressures can pull your behaviour away from them.
1. Misalignment Can Create Internal Friction
When your actions repeatedly contradict what matters to you, you may feel restless, irritable, or dissatisfied without immediately knowing why.
Perhaps nothing is obviously wrong. You are getting things done. You are meeting expectations. From the outside, the week may look successful.
But internally, something feels off.
That discomfort can be useful information. It may be pointing to a gap between the way you are spending your time and the way you actually want to live.
2. Alignment Can Bring More Meaning To Ordinary Tasks
Values do not need to show up only in major life decisions.
If collaboration matters to you, asking a trusted colleague for input can be an aligned action. If curiosity matters, giving yourself ten uninterrupted minutes to explore a question can count. If family matters, closing the laptop at a reasonable time may be a meaningful expression of that value.
Small actions make abstract values more concrete.
3. Values-Aligned Choices Can Support Self-Trust
Each time you make a decision that reflects what matters to you, you create evidence that your priorities deserve attention.
That can strengthen self-trust.
Not because every choice will be perfect, but because you are practising listening to yourself instead of automatically responding to whichever demand is loudest.
4. Alignment Can Improve Relationships
Values also influence how you relate to other people.
If honesty matters to you, alignment might look like giving clear feedback instead of avoiding a difficult conversation. If compassion matters, it may shape how you respond to a colleague who made a mistake. If connection matters, it could mean making space for a conversation rather than rushing through every interaction.
Reflection Prompt:
- Which value feels most visible in the way you currently spend your time?
- Which value feels hardest to see in your everyday life?
A STORY: SOFIA’S REALIGNMENT
Once Sofia noticed the mismatch between her values and her schedule, she initially wanted to fix everything at once.
That lasted about a day.
Her calendar was still full. Her responsibilities had not changed. The work still needed to be done.
So instead, she chose one value to focus on first: creativity.
She blocked a short period on two mornings each week for work that required deeper thinking. No email. No meetings. No administrative tasks. She also stopped automatically giving away those blocks when someone requested a meeting.
Then she looked at balance. Rather than promising herself she would “work less,” she chose one concrete boundary. She would close her laptop by a set time on three evenings each week.
Collaboration came next. Instead of waiting until she felt isolated or stuck, she began scheduling occasional conversations with colleagues whose thinking she respected.
None of the changes were dramatic.
But after several weeks, her days felt different. Her values were no longer words sitting in a notebook. They had begun showing up in her calendar, boundaries, and decisions.
That is where values become useful. Not when they sound meaningful, but when they begin influencing what you actually do.
THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND VALUES-BASED ACTION
Psychology offers a useful explanation for why living out of alignment can feel uncomfortable.
People generally feel better when there is some consistency between what they believe matters and how they behave. When those two things repeatedly conflict, it can create psychological tension.
You may recognise this as the feeling of saying, I know this matters to me, so why do I keep doing the opposite?
There is also a motivation piece.
When an action feels connected to something personally meaningful, it can feel different from an action driven only by obligation. You may still find the task difficult, but understanding why it matters to you can make the effort feel more coherent.
Values can also support emotional regulation because they offer a reference point during difficult decisions. Instead of trying to determine the perfect choice, you can ask a simpler question:
Which option is more consistent with the person I want to be?
That does not guarantee an easy answer. Sometimes two important values conflict. You may value both family and professional responsibility. You may value collaboration and autonomy. You may value ambition and rest.
Values-based living is not about rigid rules. It is about making thoughtful choices when different priorities compete.
ALIGNING YOUR ACTIONS WITH YOUR VALUES IN DAILY LIFE
Alignment becomes more practical when you stop thinking only in broad ideals.
A value such as “balance” can be difficult to act on because it is vague. What does balance look like at 3:00 p.m. on a Tuesday?
It might mean not accepting another meeting during the only open hour on your calendar.
Creativity might mean protecting fifteen minutes to sketch ideas before opening your inbox.
Connection might mean eating lunch with a colleague rather than at your desk.
Learning might mean reading something because you are curious, not because it is directly tied to your next deliverable.
The more specific you become, the easier it is to notice where your behaviour matches your values and where it does not.
One useful question is:
If someone looked only at my calendar from the past week, what would they assume I value?
The answer may be revealing.
CREATIVE ACTIVITY: VALUES ALIGNMENT AUDIT
This art therapy-inspired reflective exercise can help you compare what matters to you with where your time and energy are currently going.
Materials
- A blank sheet of paper or journal
- A pen or pencil
- Optional coloured pens or markers
- Your calendar from the past week
Steps
- Write down three to five values that matter most to you right now.
- Look through the past seven days on your calendar or think back through how you spent your time.
- Give each value its own section on the page.
- Under each value, write down actions from the week that supported it.
- Add a second list of moments when that value was pushed aside.
- Use colour, circles, or simple marks to show where you notice the strongest alignment and the biggest gaps.
- Choose one gap that feels realistic to address this week.
- Write one small action that would bring your behaviour a little closer to that value.
Keep this as an observation exercise rather than a scorecard. The goal is not to prove that you are living correctly. It is to notice where a small adjustment may help your life feel more coherent.
If you would like more guided creative practices for reflection and stress relief, you can join the free 5-Day Creative Reset Challenge here.
CREATIVE PRACTICE: BEHAVIOUR ALIGNMENT MAP
If you prefer a more visual approach, you can turn your values into a map.
Draw a large circle and divide it into sections, one for each of your core values.
Inside each section, add one specific behaviour that reflects that value.
For example:
- Creativity: Block thirty minutes for idea development.
- Connection: Call someone I care about.
- Learning: Read one article that genuinely interests me.
- Balance: Finish work at a reasonable time.
- Health: Take a real lunch break away from my screen.
Then add symbols, colour, patterns, or small drawings that represent how each behaviour feels.
Your map does not need to be evenly balanced. In fact, seeing one section almost empty may tell you something useful.
Choose one behaviour to give more attention this week.
WHEN VALUES COMPETE
Sometimes the problem is not that you are ignoring your values. It is that several important values are asking for your attention at the same time.
You want to support your team, but you also need uninterrupted work.
You care about doing excellent work, but you also value rest.
You want to be available to your family, but you have a deadline that matters to you.
This is where values work becomes more nuanced.
Instead of asking which value is “correct,” consider which one needs more attention in this particular moment.
You can also look for ways to honour both imperfectly.
Perhaps you cannot take the entire afternoon off, but you can finish at 5:30 instead of reopening your computer after dinner. Perhaps you need to help a colleague today, but you can protect tomorrow morning for your own focused work.
Alignment does not have to be absolute to be meaningful.
A MOMENT TO PAUSE
It is easy to turn values into another self-improvement project.
You identify them, make a plan, create new habits, and then feel disappointed when real life gets in the way.
But alignment is not something you complete.
It is a process of noticing and adjusting.
There will be weeks when work takes more than you wanted to give. There will be periods when family, health, or other responsibilities shift what is possible. Sometimes one value will need to move into the background temporarily.
That does not mean you have failed.
What matters is being willing to check in again.
For Sofia, realignment was not a dramatic reinvention of her life. It was noticing that her calendar did not reflect what mattered to her and making a few decisions differently.
Those decisions added up.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
After completing the Values Alignment Audit or Behaviour Alignment Map, consider:
- Which value feels easiest for me to express through my actions?
- Where is the biggest gap between what I value and how I currently spend my time?
- What external pressure is making alignment more difficult?
- What is one small choice that would feel more like me this week?
These questions are not asking you to overhaul your life. They are invitations to notice where a little more choice may be available.
THE TAKEAWAY: VALUES BECOME REAL THROUGH ACTION
Knowing what matters to you is valuable.
Living it, imperfectly and repeatedly, is where the deeper shift happens.
Your values can show up in how you schedule your time, where you place boundaries, which relationships you invest in, how you speak to colleagues, and what you decide not to take on.
Sometimes alignment requires a larger decision. More often, it begins with a smaller one.
One protected hour. One honest conversation. One earlier finish. One creative pause. One choice that says, This matters to me, so I am making room for it.
You do not need perfect alignment. You need enough awareness to notice when you have drifted and enough flexibility to make your next choice a little more intentional.
If you would like more grounded reflections on creativity, work, and well-being, subscribe to The Creative Shift below:
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