Living Into Our Values: The Decisions We Can Live With

There are moments in life when we are faced with decisions we don’t want to make.

Moments when we feel stuck between two or more competing priorities. When every option seems to cost us something. When choosing one path feels like betraying another.

Whether we are leading at home, at work or in community, these moments are inevitable. And in those moments, our values matter more than our comfort.

I live through this tension often. I’ve lived it in seasons where my time was so limited, capacity and resources were stretched, and the world felt increasingly complex. I’ve experienced it when walking away from jobs, relationships, and environments that no longer served my purpose. 

Whether having hard conversations with colleagues, receiving uncomfortable feedback from mentors , we have the option of choosing alignment over approval.

What I’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, is this: When we don’t live into our values, the cost shows up anyway.

It shows up as emotional and moral distress.

As burnout.

As fractured relationships.

As a quiet erosion of our physical and mental health.

What Does It Mean to Live Into Our Values?

Living into our values means doing more than professing them. It means we practice them.

We become clear about what (and why) we believe and what we hold important and we pay attention to whether our intentions, words, thoughts, and behaviors are aligned with those beliefs. 

It’s easy to make snap decisions driven by fear, urgency, or convenience. Values slow us down just enough to help us make decisions we can live with. Even when the consequences are uncomfortable.

That alignment brings peace. It builds integrity. It allows us to say, “This was hard but it was right for me.”

What Is a Value?

A value is a way of being or believing that we hold as important.

Values can and often do change across different phases of our lives. Or perhaps the expression of the value changes. For example, one of my core values is wisdom. Over time, wisdom has looked like knowledge, intuition, discernment, building, silence, and voice depending on the season and context of my life.

This is important: Don’t get stuck on the words. Values require reflection and redefinition. Regular evaluation isn’t a failure of commitment, it’s a sign of growth.

Why Values Matter in Leadership

As leaders, whether in our families, workplaces, or communities, there is real danger in living outside our values.

Leaders who lack clarity of values often experience deep internal conflict. Leaders who profess values but don’t practice them lose trust—both with others and with themselves.

True leadership carries clarity of values and the courage to live them out (albeit imperfectly)

A Values-Centered Framework (Inspired by Brené Brown)

In Dare to Lead, social worker and researcher Brené Brown reminds us that courageous leadership is rooted in integrity and vulnerability.

Living a values-centered life allows others to know us authentically and allows us to be honest with ourselves.

She offers a simple, powerful three-step approach.

1. Identify and Name Your Values

Your values can be shaped by your family background, culture, and lived experiences. Start by writing down the values that feel important to you. Then narrow the list to three core values.

Notice how they feed one another. For me, faith is a core value that fuels others like compassion, connection, even if those don’t make the final top three.

2. Move Values from “BS” to Behavior

Values mean little without action.

Take a pen and paper and, for each value:

• Write 3–4 behaviors that demonstrate that value

• Write 3–4 actions that contradict it

• Write one example of a time you fully lived into that value

This comparison reveals the gap between intention and practice and shows you where to stop, start, or shift.

For example, if one of your values is growth, reading might feel aligned. But if all your reading avoids your area of growth, then the behavior doesn’t fully serve the value. It doesn’t mean you stop enjoying what you love—it means you add what your value requires.

3. Find People Who Help You Live Your Values

We don’t live our values alone.

Accountability partners, mentors, and coaches help us stay grounded in what matters especially when it would be easier to drift.

Brené suggests reflecting on these questions:

• Who knows your values and supports you in living them?

• What does that support actually look like?

• What are your personal red flags that signal you’re living outside your values?

  
  

This kind of honesty requires vulnerability. It can feel uncomfortable. But leaning into that discomfort is what Brené calls daring leadership.

A Gentle Invitation

Living into our values doesn’t mean life becomes easier. It means it becomes clearer.

And clarity even when costly is a powerful form of freedom.

As you move through this week, I invite you to pause and ask:

What matters most to me right now and what would it look like to live that out, even imperfectly?

That question alone can change everything.

Enjoy your week!