The Values Audit: A 15-Minute Practice to Realign Your Life
Stop chasing goals that aren’t yours.
There was a point, not long ago, where I hit something I’d been working toward for years. I don’t remember feeling much.
Relief, maybe, for a day or two…
Then a strange flatness I didn’t have a name for. I was sure it wasn’t burnout and not ingratitude.
It was something quieter, like arriving somewhere and realizing, only then, that I’d been heading there mostly out of momentum.
I’d been so busy moving I hadn’t asked whether I actually wanted to end up there.
That feeling stayed longer than I expected. And eventually it turned into a question I couldn’t set aside: how much of what I’m chasing did I actually choose?
Where do our values come from?
Most of us don’t choose our values from scratch. We absorb them.
From family, culture, the industries we enter at 22 and never think to interrogate. The goals follow naturally from there. And we’re so busy achieving them that the deeper question never surfaces.
Schwartz’s cross-cultural research across 82 countries found that values are beliefs linked inextricably to affect. When they’re activated, they become infused with feeling (Schwartz, 2012).
I’ve noticed this in myself.
There are things I do that leave me depleted even when they go well, and things that leave me energized even when they’re hard.
There's a specific kind of tired that has nothing to do with how much you've done. It comes from doing the right things for the wrong reasons.
Research shows that when external rewards such as status, titles, or approval dominate, the brain quietly devalues the work itself. The intrinsic reward shrinks in proportion to the external one (Murayama et al., 2010). Doing that long enough, your motivation and even wellbeing start to get affected (Deci & Ryan, 2000).
Did I choose this, or did I drift here?
I started sitting with this on a long flight.
I wrote down the areas of my life where most of my time and energy were going:
work, relationships, health, the things I made, the things I studied… and asked one question about each: did I choose this, or did I drift here?
The honest answers were very uncomfortable. There were things I’d chosen clearly. But others I’d arrived at sideways. Mostly through expectation, inertia, someone else’s idea of what a life like mine should look like.
Recognizing it didn't change anything immediately. But it made it visible.
What do I actually value?
Then I looked at a list of values. The kind researchers use, the kind Brené Brown draws on in her leadership work. Then I circled the ones that felt most true to me.
Integrity. Creativity. Connection. Freedom. Growth. Presence. Service. Courage. Simplicity. Depth. Adventure. Stability. Expression. Contribution.
What does my calendar actually say?
Then the harder question: were any of these showing up in how I was actually spending my days?
Presence was on my list. I was checking my phone during conversations I’d waited weeks to have.
Creativity was there too. I hadn’t made anything outside of work in months.
The distance between what I said I valued and what my calendar actually reflected was uncomfortable to look at directly.
Brown describes this as the gap between professing values and practicing them. The difference between saying what matters and letting it actually shape your behavior (Dare to Lead, 2018).
I wasn’t walking much of mine.
So I wrote one sentence.
I value _____, but I spend most of my time on _____.
I wrote a few versions. Sat with the one that stung most. Didn’t try to fix it immediately. Just let it be true for a moment, which is harder than it sounds.
What do I do with this?
What I did afterward wasn’t dramatic.
I picked one small thing that felt more aligned and started doing it consistently, and let the rest follow from there.
James Clear frames these small moves as votes: “every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become” (Atomic Habits, 2018).
That framing helped. It made the bar low enough to actually clear, and the direction started to compound on its own.
Are these goals even mine?
What I’ve found, returning to this practice over the years, is that the goals themselves are rarely the problem. They’re often good goals. They just aren’t always mine.
A goal that genuinely belongs to you has a particular quality. It pulls rather than pushes. It feels like coming home rather than performing for an audience.
Most people have felt that difference at some point. The question is whether you trust it enough to act on it, even slightly.
If something here landed for you, tell me what you found. I read every response.
— Ram
I've stopped making goals/plans and now work with directly with the energy of intention.
End of day reflection:
When, where and how today, to the best of my ability, did I show up fully aligned within myself?
Beginning of day opening (before getting out of bed, picking up phone, etc.):
What did my dreams show me last night and what do I want to carry into this day?