Am I Actually Living What I Say I Value?

October Series — Part 2

We can be very clear about what matters to us. We can talk about family, health, connection, kindness, freedom, or having a life that feels meaningful, but here’s the question:

Image with thanks to Unsplash - TD @tddesign

If someone looked at how I spend my time, energy, attention, and money, could they tell what matters to me?

It can feel uncomfortable. Not because we deliberately live against our values, but because the life we intend to live and the life we actually live don't always look the same.

Last week, I wrote about identifying the values that are genuinely ours, rather than the ones we've inherited or picked up along the way.

This week, I’m taking that a little further because knowing what matters to us is one thing.

Living as though it matters is something else entirely.

Our Intentions And Our Everyday Lives

I think most of us have a reasonable idea of the things we want to make important in our lives.

We want to look after our health. Spend more time with the people we love. Make space for the things that interest us. Perhaps we want a little more peace, more freedom, or simply less rushing from one thing to the next and yet, somehow, the weeks pass by.

We put off the walk because there's too much to do. We promise ourselves we'll call someone when we have more time. We keep going when we're tired because it's easier than stopping. We tell ourselves we'll get around to doing something we love once everything else is sorted.

The trouble is, everything else is rarely sorted.

There is always another job, another responsibility, another thing that needs our attention.

Before we know it, the things we said mattered have been pushed to the edges of our lives. Not because we've changed our minds about them, but because other things keep taking priority.

I've found it helpful to recognise that this doesn't necessarily mean we're living the wrong life. Sometimes we're simply living on autopilot, responding to whatever is in front of us rather than making conscious choices about where we want our time to go.

Where Do Your Priorities Really Show Up?

I find it interesting to think about how our values show up in ordinary, everyday decisions.

Not the big decisions we spend weeks thinking about, but the small ones we make almost without noticing.

Take health, for example. We might genuinely value our wellbeing, but how often do we put everyone else's needs first and leave ourselves whatever energy is left?

Or perhaps we value connection. We care deeply about our relationships, yet we're so busy getting through the day that our conversations become brief exchanges about what needs doing.

Maybe creativity matters to us. We miss having something of our own to work on, something that brings us pleasure simply because we enjoy it. But there's always a reason to put it off until tomorrow.

None of these things makes us bad at living our values. Life has seasons when our responsibilities are heavier, our energy is lower, or circumstances simply aren't in our control.

If the same pattern continues for months or years, I think it's worth paying attention.

Sometimes the gap between what we value and how we live isn't caused by one big decision.

It's created by lots of small decisions that we barely notice making.

And the question isn't whether we're getting everything right. It's whether the way we're living still reflects what matters to us.

What Gets Your Time, Energy And Attention?

There are three areas I keep coming back to when thinking about this.

Time - Where does your time actually go?

Not where you wish it went, or where you think it should go, but where it goes on an ordinary day or during a typical week.

Energy - What gets the best of you?

Are you giving your energy to the things that matter most, or are you often left with very little for yourself and the people or activities you care about?

Attention - What occupies your mind?

Even when we're physically present with someone or doing something we enjoy, our thoughts can be somewhere else entirely, running through tomorrow's list or worrying about what we haven't done.

I would add money to that list, too. Surprisingly, the way we spend money can tell us something about our priorities, although our choices are also shaped by what we can afford and the commitments we have.

I'm not suggesting we should scrutinise every hour or every pound. That would turn something meaningful into another exercise in self-improvement.

This is simply about looking at the bigger picture.

If you say that peace matters to you, but your days are so full that you rarely have a moment to breathe, there's something worth exploring.

If freedom matters, but you find yourself saying yes to almost every request, you may be caught between what you want and what you feel expected to do.

And if connection matters, but you rarely make time for the people who make you feel most like yourself, perhaps that relationship needs a little more attention.

The gap isn't there to make us feel guilty. It's there to help us see something we might otherwise miss.

Sometimes Our Values Compete With One Another

There's another side to this that I think is important.

We don't always struggle to live our values because we've forgotten what matters. Sometimes it's because several things matter to us at once.

We might value being dependable and having freedom. We might care deeply about our family and need more time for ourselves. We might value achievement but also want a slower, less pressured life.

These things aren't necessarily in conflict, but balancing them can be difficult.

I know how easy it is to focus on the value that feels most urgent at the time. If someone needs our help, being dependable may take precedence. If work is demanding, responsibility may come first. If life feels uncertain, security may matter more than adventure.

And sometimes that's exactly as it should be.

The difficulty comes when one value, or one set of expectations, consistently takes up so much space that there's little room for anything else.

Perhaps the answer isn't to abandon one value in favour of another. Maybe it's to recognise that both matter and start asking how we might honour them more thoughtfully.

That might mean helping someone without automatically taking on everything. Making time for yourself without feeling you have to earn it first. Or allowing something to be good enough rather than spending hours trying to make it perfect.

Small adjustments can make a difference.

What Would Living Your Values Look Like In Practice?

I think this is where the conversation becomes useful because it’s one thing to say that connection, creativity, health or freedom matters to us. It's another to decide what that actually looks like in our everyday lives.

If connection matters, perhaps it's putting your phone away when you're talking to someone; if health matters, perhaps it's going to bed when you're tired rather than squeezing one more job into the evening.

Maybe creativity matters; perhaps it's giving yourself half an hour to write, paint, make something or explore an idea without needing it to lead anywhere.

Or if peace matters, perhaps it's leaving a little space between commitments rather than filling every available moment.

None of these actions is particularly dramatic, but I think that is actually the point here.

Living by our values doesn't have to involve changing careers, moving house or making a grand declaration that everything is going to be different from now on - it's about making a different choice in a familiar situation, and sometimes it's about recognising that a change is needed, even if we're not quite ready to make it yet.

We don't need to fix everything at once; we just need to become a little more aware of the choices available to us.

A Little Reflection For This Week

If you have ten quiet minutes, think back over the past seven days.

Choose two or three things that matter to you. They might be values you identified last week, or something else you've realised is important.

Then consider these questions.

• Where did these things show up in the way I spent my time, energy and attention?

• When did I make room for them, even in a small way?

• What kept getting in the way?

• Is there anything I'm giving more time or energy to than I really want to?

• What's one small thing I could do differently next week?

Try to answer honestly, without turning it into a list of things you should have done better.

There may be things you want to change. There may also be things you realise you're already doing well but have been overlooking.

Both are worth noticing. If you discover that something important to you has been missing from your life lately, you don't have to make a big decision today. You can simply acknowledge it and begin to think about what making a little more room for it might look like.

Living By Design, Not By Default

I keep coming back to the idea that an intentional life isn't necessarily a perfectly organised life.

It's not about getting every decision right or making sure every minute serves a purpose. It's about being awake to the life we're living and having some say in how it takes shape.

We will always have responsibilities. There will be days when other people's needs have to come first, when our plans go out the window, or when we simply don't have the energy to do what we'd hoped.

That's life, but perhaps we can become a little more conscious of the patterns we fall into and the choices we make.

Maybe we can stop assuming that the things we value will automatically find their place in our lives and begin making room for them instead, because what matters to us deserves more than a place on a list. It deserves to be part of the way we live.

Remember. Rewrite. Live.

Remember what matters to you.

Rewrite the expectations and habits that leave little room for it.

And find small, meaningful ways to live it.

Live by design, not by default.

Next week: What gets in the way of living my values?

I’ll explore people-pleasing, old expectations, fear, habits, busyness and the stories we tell ourselves that can pull us away from what matters.