Experiencing dissonance in making decisions? Maybe you haven’t done the groundwork.

Many of us struggle with both finding our purpose and making meaningful decisions. 

The two are connected. 

The struggles we experience with decision-making can be due to never taking the time to determine what our values are and then checking to make sure they’re reflected in our current life choices. Without having done that, it’s easy for dissonance to creep in, leaving us feeling off-kilter. 

Values work is a powerful tool that can provide much-needed clarity.

What are Values?

Values are the core beliefs and principles that guide our actions and shape our identity. 

Furthermore, they guide us in our choices, relationships, and leadership. Whereas morals, principles, and norms are generally imposed on us externally by society or a group we’re a member of, values are the internal building blocks of who we are. 

Clarifying our values is an opportunity to evaluate how much the life you are living aligns with the life you want to live.

My core values are growth and belonging; both are central to who I am and the life I want to lead. Finding an organization more closely aligned with how I wanted to honor those values at this stage of life guided my decision to leave government service at the end of last year.

It's worth noting that the way we live out our values changes and evolves over time. Health and fitness are extremely important to me under my value of growth, but the way I live that out now looks much different than it did when I was postpartum with my kids or when I was an All-American powerlifter in college. 

Our values can be consistent even if the way we honor them differently in different seasons.

Why Do Values Matter?

Senior partners at McKinsey & Company wrote a book about their approach to transforming leaders, which contains lessons from coaching and mentoring over 500 CEOs worldwide. 

Their first critical finding is that leaders need to think about who they are as much as what they want to do, and their second is that the best leaders are vulnerable. They say, “Leaders should engage in continuous self-reflection to understand their values, strengths, and weaknesses. Self-reflection is neither a privilege nor an indulgence; it serves the organization.”

Exploring Values

My favorite way to explore values is through guided self-reflection, which is great to do with a coach. I also highly recommend Brené Brown’s tools, including this worksheet, or simply journaling about your life—past moments of self-discovery and strength or current daily activities—and listing the values that felt most important. 

It can be just as helpful to consider what values may have been violated at times, creating feelings that seemed like dissonance at the time but more likely signaled a deep resonance with your values.

Take some time to consider your own values. What’s most important to you? How do your values guide your actions and decisions? Are there any values you’d like to put more energy into? What would that change about your life? 

The more we practice creating resonance between our values and our lives, the more easily we’ll be able to make decisions aligned with our purpose and values, as well as spot and resolve dissonance.

Photo by Unseen Studio