Knowing Your Values = Best Self Care In The World
- Aug 19
- 4 min read
Move From Burnout to Aligned Living
When life feels rushed, heavy, or uncertain, one of the most grounding practices is to pause and return to your core values, the ways of being you hold as most important. Values aren’t lofty concepts you pin to the wall and forget; they’re the heartbeat of your daily life, shaping what you say yes to, when you say no, and how you show up authentically in your relationships.
Think of your core values as an inner North Star, they help you navigate choices when the map of your life feels blurry. Contrary to popular belief, values don’t have to stay fixed forever. The joys and pains in our lives shift them over time. In my twenties, I was steeped in beauty, love, and delight. Those values guided me as I wandered the world and let wonder infuse my days. Later, as a solo parent, my values shifted. Courage and tenacity carried me through difficult years, helping me stand strong for my daughter and myself. Today, in my fifties, I live from ease, wonder, and wisdom (heck yes!). Each season of life has required a different constellation of values, but together, they have created a rock solid foundation I can always trust. Values discovery work is where you get to meet yourself - the most true and authentic and lit up version of you.
One of the best parts of values work is that we can revisit them annually, or every couple of years when we’ve had transitions or changes. It’s a time for us to slow down and ask, ‘what’s really important now?’
When we live out of alignment with our values, the discomfort often shows up in whispers at first: restlessness, dissatisfaction, a vague sense that something is off. Wait too long, and those whispers become loud and show up as burnout, resentment, or physical illness. In contrast, when you live by your values, life feels more spacious. There’s clarity, grounded confidence, and a quiet sense of rightness within your life. You feel more like yourself, not the person others expect you to be, but who you really are at your core.
And here’s something essential: knowing your values is the most powerful form of self-care. Self-care is often packaged as bubble baths, yoga classes, or green juices, all of which I’m a fan of! But those practices are temporary. They help you restore, but they don’t address the deeper patterns that led to exhaustion in the first place.
Values-based self-care is different. When you know your values, you stop trying to be everything to everyone. You give yourself permission to protect your energy, to say no when something is misaligned, and to say yes when it lights you up. You design your days around what replenishes you rather than drains you. Knowing your values and living a values based life is the kind of self-care that prevents burnout, not just helps you recover from it.
Your brain’s Reticular Activating System (RAS) can support you in living more deeply into your values. The RAS is a tiny network of nerves at the base of your brain that acts like a filter. Out of the millions of bits of information around you, it decides what’s worth noticing. Think of it as the spotlight operator in a theatre. Once you decide something is important, the RAS shines its light there. That’s why, after deciding you want a certain car, you suddenly see it everywhere. The cars were always there, you just weren’t noticing them. Now imagine pointing that spotlight toward your values. If you choose connection, your RAS will start highlighting tender moments: a smile from a stranger, a deep conversation with a friend, a chance to reach out to someone you love. If you choose creativity, you’ll begin spotting new ideas, colours, or possibilities you had overlooked. This is how your brain becomes an ally in self-care.
By focusing on your values, you literally train your mind to notice more of what matters to you.
Once you’ve named your core values, you can open the door to aspiring values. Aspiring values are FUN. They are ones you long to grow into, the ones tugging at you from the future. Aspiring values may not describe your life today, but they light the path ahead. Some of my favourites, and the ones that show up a lot for my clients are, wild-hearted, ease, or delight. I once chose “ease” as an aspiring value during a season of deep burnout. At the time, it felt impossible. But by putting my attention there, writing the word on a sticky note, creating (not great!) art about it, compiling a playlist dedicated to it, and asking myself how ease might show up that day, I gradually shifted. Today, ease isn’t just something I aspire to; it’s part of the foundation I live from.
Here’s a simple three-question sequence to begin:
What truly matters most to me right now, in this season of life?
When was a time I felt fully alive and aligned?
What values were present then?
If I could grow into one aspiring value this year, what would it be, and how might it change how I move through my days?
Take these questions into your journal, on a walk with a friend, or into quiet moments with a cup of tea. The answers don’t need to be polished or perfect, they only need to be yours.
When you pair the steady foundation of your core values with the forward pull of aspiring values, you create more than just a functional life. You create a life that feels designed by you—authentic, rooted, and uniquely yours. And that, truly, is the best self-care out there.
Click the PDF below to get your own set of values cards that you can print, cut along the lines and play with. Take my values mini course (under self-led courses) to learn more about you so you can design your best life.
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