Your values are easy to name when life is going the way you want it to. It is much harder to recognize them when they are tested by fear, disappointment, uncertainty, or the expectations of other people.
I have been thinking a lot about that lately. My three strongest values are connection, integrity, and legacy. I know what those words mean to me. I know the kind of person I want to be when I am living from those values. The harder question is what happens when my actions stop reflecting them.
I pulled an oracle card recently called “Heal the Ouch.” The message was simple: I was hurting. I already knew that on some level, although seeing it reflected back to me made me stop and actually look at what was underneath it.
There is a lot happening in my life right now that I cannot control. I have spent so much time thinking about those circumstances that I started allowing them to determine how I felt about myself. I felt stuck, so I isolated myself. I disconnected from friends. I disconnected from myself. I started telling myself that I was worthless and that I was alone in all of it.
The more I believed those things, the more I acted in ways that reinforced them. I withdrew when what I actually valued was connection. I spoke to myself in ways that had very little integrity. I was using my circumstances as evidence for a story about who I was, rather than recognizing that I was hurting and needed to take care of myself.
That realization was difficult to sit with. I value connection, yet I was disconnecting. I value integrity, yet I was saying things to myself that I would never want another person to believe about themselves. I had become so focused on surviving what was happening around me that I stopped asking what was happening within me.
Then I saw a video where someone said, “Don’t resist your life. Assist.”
I cannot change everything happening around me. I cannot force people to respond differently, make every opportunity work out, or control what happens next. I can decide how I participate in my own life. I can stop fighting reality long enough to actually see it. I can acknowledge that something hurts without turning that pain into an identity. I can let myself be supported. I can reach toward connection instead of deciding that isolation is safer. I can trust myself to handle what comes next.
For me, assisting my life looks a lot like learning to trust again. Trusting myself. Trusting that I do not need to understand every part of the path before taking the next step. Trusting that life can move in directions I cannot see yet. Trusting that what is meant for me does not require me to destroy myself trying to hold onto it.
That brings me back to integrity.
Integrity is not simply being honest with other people. It also includes the relationship I have with myself. It asks whether my choices, my behavior, and the way I speak to myself reflect the person I say I want to be. GivThat is where values become much more complicated.
It is easy to say that I value connection. It is harder to reach out when I am afraid of getting too close and being hurt. It is easy to say that I value integrity. It is harder to treat myself with compassion when part of me wants to use my circumstances as proof that the worst things I think about myself are true.
Living according to your values does not mean you never struggle with them. It means you notice when you are moving away from them and decide what you want to do next.
My third value, legacy, has shaped so much of my life. I have built my work around creating things that I hope will continue helping people beyond a single conversation or moment. My nonprofit, my workbooks, my books, my Pieces of You games, my speaking, and the mental health work I continue creating are all connected to the idea that I want my life to leave something meaningful behind.
Legacy is deeply important to me. It also creates its own questions.
When you build your work around impact and service, there are periods when everything feels alive. There are opportunities, people who connect with what you are creating, sales, conversations, invitations, and reminders that the work is reaching someone. Then there are periods when things become incredibly quiet. People do not always see the value in what you have created. They do not always buy. They do not always hire you. Opportunities do not always arrive when you need them.
That can bring me back to a question I have had to confront repeatedly: Do I stay committed to work that feels meaningful when the financial return is inconsistent, or do I prioritize creating a more consistent livelihood?
For a long time, I have treated those options as if I had to choose one. I do not think I do.
I value legacy, and I also value being able to live. I value meaningful work, and I value stability. I want to create things that help people, and I also need to build a life that supports me while I am doing that work.
Those values can exist together. The question becomes how.
How can I build financial sustainability without abandoning the work that matters to me? How can I create income in ways that still feel aligned with who I am? How can I allow my desire for stability to support my legacy rather than viewing it as evidence that I have somehow compromised it?
Those questions do not have one perfect answer. They are questions I am still living.
I think that is part of what makes values so interesting. They are not a checklist we complete once and then move on from. They come into our decisions over and over again, especially when two things we care about seem to pull us in different directions.
The same thing happens with other people.
One of the clearest ways I notice my values being tested is through people-pleasing. I can know exactly what I believe, what I want, or what feels right for me, then start questioning myself the moment someone else disagrees.
That is where I have been asking myself a very simple question: What would I do if no one agreed with me? Would I still make the same decision? Would I still say what I believe? Would I still choose the relationship, boundary, opportunity, or direction that feels right to me if I knew someone else might misunderstand it?
There is a difference between considering other people and abandoning yourself to keep them comfortable.
Connection does not require me to agree with everyone. Integrity does not require everyone else to understand my choices. Legacy does not require me to sacrifice my entire life in service of something larger than myself.
My values are supposed to help me understand how I want to live. They are not supposed to become another set of expectations I use to judge myself.
That has been one of the biggest things I have been thinking about this month. I do not want to build a life that looks aligned from the outside while I am completely disconnected from myself on the inside.
I want my choices to tell the truth about what I value.
I want connection to show up in the way I allow people into my life and the way I reach for them when I need them.
I want integrity to show up in the way I speak to myself, the boundaries I hold, the decisions I make, and the promises I keep to myself.
I want legacy to show up in the work I create and the people I serve, while still allowing me to create a life where I am supported, financially and otherwise. None of that means I will get it right every time. I will still pull away when I am afraid. I will still question myself. I will still make decisions from fear. I will still have moments where my actions do not line up with what I say I value.
The goal is not perfection. It is awareness. When I notice that I have moved away from my values, I can ask myself what happened, what I was protecting, what I was afraid of, and what I want to choose now. That is where alignment begins.
Your values are more than the words you write down when someone asks you what matters most. They show up in the way you spend your time, the relationships you maintain, the boundaries you set, the risks you take, the opportunities you accept, the things you walk away from, and the way you treat yourself when life does not go according to plan.
So this month, I am asking myself a question I think we can all sit with: Who am I when living according to my values becomes uncomfortable?
When people disagree with me. When I am afraid of being hurt. When choosing what I value costs me something. When the path I want is not working. When I am disappointed. When I do not know what comes next.
That is where I want to pay attention. Not to whether I am doing everything perfectly, but to whether I am still choosing the person I want to be.
Our values are not only revealed by what we believe. They are revealed by what we choose.
