The Discipline of Knowing Your Values
As part of this week focused on values and goals in my coaching training with Barefoot Coaching Ltd, we spent time in smaller groups reflecting on a few simple questions:
What goal would I like to set for myself today?
What is a value? What does it actually mean, and what is it not?
I realised I was still a bit unsure about my goal for the day.
Nothing particularly ambitious came to mind. If anything, it was the opposite: not overdoing it.
Staying present in the process and continuing to learn.
What Does It Mean to Live a Meaningful Life?
We explored the idea that a meaningful life is not just about reaching a destination, but about enjoying the journey towards something we deem valuable (a concept developed by Tal Ben-Shahar).
Which naturally leads to a deeper question: What do you actually value?
To explore that, we used a few prompts:
What gives me meaning?
What gives me pleasure?
What are my strengths?
Some people might recognise a similar idea through Ikigai, where purpose sits at the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for.
We also touched on David McClelland’s theory of motivation: achievement, affiliation and power, another lens to understand what might be driving us.
Discovering Values Through Experience
During the session, I again had the chance to both coach and be coached.
One exercise stood out: the Peak Experience.
You describe a moment in your life or career where you felt deeply fulfilled and energised.
I immediately thought about a trip I took to South Korea and Japan with friends and family.
As I described that experience, certain themes started to emerge:
Planning
Connection
Creating memories
Disconnecting
Learning (about cultures and languages)
Recognising Patterns in Your Values
What struck me is how closely these align with values I had already identified last year when working with my mentor:
Caring / Faithfulness → Connection
Order → Planning
Creativity / Caring → Creating memories
Order / Caring (towards self) → Disconnecting
Knowledge / Creativity → Learning (cultures & languages)
Different words, but very similar patterns.
It’s one thing to know your values. It’s another to actually live in alignment with them.
So I found myself reflecting:
Where am I already aligned?
And where am I not?
Values, Goals and Meaning
This week is making me realise something simple but important:
Goals without values can feel empty. But values without action remain intentions.
Somewhere in between is where things start to feel meaningful.
And maybe that applies far beyond coaching.
A Reflection for Leaders and Delivery Roles
In leadership and delivery roles, we often talk about goals, performance and outcomes.
But less often about the values that sit underneath them.
So a final reflection for leaders reading this:
How often do you check whether the way you work is actually aligned with what you say you value?
