We talk a lot about values in coaching and in workplace psychology more broadly. People can usually name what matters to them fairly easily – things like connection, fairness, growth, honesty, adventure.
But clarity of values is only half the story. The real difference is made not by identifying our values, but by living them, bringing them to life in practical ways.
Values are what we do, not how we feel
In The Happiness Trap, Russ Harris makes a distinction worth remembering: values are what we want to do, not how we want to feel. It’s an easy point to miss. In coaching conversations and workshops, people often start equating living their values with a feeling – usually comfort or happiness – and treat any discomfort as evidence that they’ve strayed from what matters to them. In fact, the opposite is frequently true.
Values aren’t a mood or a state we’re chasing. They’re a compass for behaviour. And that’s precisely what makes them so useful: they’re flexible enough to be expressed in countless small, everyday ways, rather than demanding we follow one more rigid rule. And absolutely nobody needs more mental rules!
Mind the gap! (between stated and lived values)
Most of us can point to a values statement at work. Look around – maybe you can see your company’s values displayed on a poster, a desktop or a mousemat. The trouble starts when those words stop matching our actions. It’s easy for a leader, or any of us, to talk about values often and enthusiastically, right up until living them becomes uncomfortable or inconvenient.
This disconnect rarely goes unnoticed. Employees regularly describe the gap between their organisation’s stated values and how their manager actually behaves day to day – and that gap is corrosive. It breeds cynicism far faster than having no stated values at all. The same pattern plays out publicly too: when a person’s declared values and their visible decisions pull in opposite directions, people notice, people comment, and it changes how that person is perceived.
None of this is about achieving flawless consistency. Nobody manages that, and aiming for it isn’t the point. What matters is honesty and self-awareness: recognising when we’ve acted against something we say is important to us, and doing something about it rather than letting the gap quietly widen.
It’s not always comfortable
Here’s the part that’s easy to forget: values-aligned action doesn’t always feel good in the moment. Giving a colleague honest feedback can be one of the most values-driven things we do at work, and it can also be genuinely uncomfortable. Putting yourself forward for a promotion or a new level of responsibility might reflect exactly what you say matters to you, while also stirring up fear of failure or rejection.
Avoiding that discomfort brings short-term relief, but it comes at a cost: we don’t do the thing we actually believe matters. Decoupling values from enjoyment is a useful shift in itself. Living our values isn’t always fun or easy – but when we do it, it tends to feel meaningful, and that meaning is where the real sense of satisfaction comes from.
Small actions count
The good news is that bringing values to life doesn’t require grand gestures. They show up in small, ordinary choices: having the conversation you’d rather avoid, trying something new even when you’re likely to feel a bit foolish doing it. Or simply choosing to be present for someone, rather than multi-tasking with your phone.
A useful starting point is a simple question: what’s one small thing you could do today that reflects what genuinely matters to you? Or, looking backwards over the day so far – what have you already done that was values-aligned, even if you didn’t notice it at the time? Making this explicit connection can help bring your values to mind more easily, and more frequently.
If values work is new to you, start there. The clarity will come. What makes the difference is what you do next.
👉🏻 To learn more about values and their contribution to your wellbeing and effectiveness at work, join our online community WorkLifeSpark and check out the recording of this month’s ‘Learn at Lunch’ session, which was all about values in action.
