Articulate your values to stay closer to your truth.
How many times this week have you scrolled past conflicting advice about how you should live your life? One post is telling you to hustle harder to find success, while another is telling you that rest is revolutionary. One post is telling you that boundaries are sacred, while another is telling you that inconvenience is the price you pay for community.
In a world where everyone has an opinion about what you should do, how do you know what you actually want to do?
“Knowing what to do” is a skill that is rooted in discernment, which stems from the ability to understand what your values are.
Discernment and values go hand in hand, but many people haven’t really slowed down to take the time to get in touch with what their values actually are.
In this article, we’ll scratch the surface on what it means to be able to articulate your values, and why it is important.
What are values, really?
Before we talk about articulating values, let’s first get clear on what values are in the first place.
Values are the guiding principles that shape how you move through the world. They're not goals you're trying to achieve or outcomes you're working toward, they're the qualities and commitments that inform how you show up, make decisions, and engage with life itself.
If you think of goals as destinations ("I want to write a book”), then values are how you travel ("I value creativity, integrity, and perseverance"). The goal might change, but the values remain your compass.
Inherited vs. Chosen Values
Most of us are walking around with a mix of inherited and chosen values, and oftentimes we don’t really know which is which.
Inherited values are those that were imparted on you from your family, your culture, your community, and the systems that you’ve operated within throughout your life. Having inherited values isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and many inherited values can serve us well. The question is whether or not you’ve consciously examined these inherited values that you are carrying. Do these values align with who you are now, or are you operating on autopilot, and acting out scripts you never consciously agreed to?
That’s where chosen values come into play. Chosen values are those that you consciously choose to practice. They come after you’ve done the work of asking “Is this actually true for me? Does this value represent who I want to be, and how I want to operate in this world?”
The practice of values articulation is all about bringing consciousness to the distinction between inherited and chosen values, and getting clear on which values you want to consciously uphold and steward moving forward.
Internal Values Articulation: Knowing Your Own
Values articulation is bidirectional – encompassing the ability to articulate your values to yourself and to those around you.
Clear internal articulation of values means that when you come up against a decision, an opportunity, or a challenge, you have the ability to turn inward and ask yourself to evaluate whatever it is you’re facing against your values, so that when you take external action, it is in accordance with your values.
When your external action flows from internal clarity, you move into what I call attunement, where your external reality starts to more closely resemble your inner values. You start drawing aligned people and opportunities into your orbit through the simple act of showing up as your authentic self.
When you’re working, creating, or building with people who are similarly rooted in their own values, the quality of the collaboration transforms. You can start really digging into the work together, rather than spending 50% (or more!) of the time trying to navigate values misalignment, confusion due to lack of values articulation, decision paralysis etc. And any creative tension that arises tends to be generative, rather than exhausting.
This doesn't mean everyone needs to have identical values. In fact, complementary values often create the richest collaborations. But everyone needs to know what they stand for and be able to articulate it.
Taking time to go inwards and explore the inner landscape of your values ecosystem also gives you a deeper understanding of what values cultivation looks like as a process. This will give you a deeper potential for empathy and ability to engage with folks’ whose values look different than yours, especially if they too have done the deep work of understanding what their values are and why they hold those values. From there, instead of immediately dismissing or defending, you can get curious. You can ask questions. You can hold your own values firmly while remaining open to understanding theirs.
External Values Articulation: Expressing to the World
Internal values articulation is crucial, but it’s only half of the equation.
External values articulation is the practice of making your values visible to help you build stronger relationships, set boundaries, and collaborate with intention.
When you’re able to clearly articulate your values to others, you reduce confusion and unnecessary friction, as we’ve discussed. Without this visibility, it is easy for assumptions to be made, and when assumptions are made yet kept concealed, misalignment begins to feel personal, and communications break down much faster. When values (and assumptions) are able to be spoken clearly, differences can be constructively navigated with care.
Sharing your values externally doesn’t have to look like you walking around and announcing your values to everyone you meet, right when you meet them. It can be much more subtle than that.
It can show up in your work and how you describe it to others, the decisions you make publicly, the collaborations you say yes to, and the ways you show up in collaborations.
Making Room for Emergence in Values
While you do want your values to be somewhat rooted, it's also important to acknowledge that values should be imbued with a respect for emergence. As you learn more information, your values might shift, and that shouldn’t be considered a bad thing.
Thus, it’s important not just to be able to articulate our values and how they ripple out into our actions, but also to understand how to engage with our values as they’re changing shape, without facing too much resistance or building too much of a narrative about it, but also in a way that allows you to maintain that sense of self trust as you change.
The key is understanding the difference between evolution and reactivity. Authentic evolution of your values will happen slowly, through accumulated experience and reflection. Reactive wavering with your values, however, happens quickly, often in response to external pressure or fear. With reactive wavering, you feel tempted to abandon a value because someone criticized it, because staying true to it feels hard, or because a different value looks shinier in the moment.
This is why values articulation can and should be a seasonal, rhythmic practice. You can set the rhythm. Maybe you re-evaluate every 6 months. Every year. Every 5 years. You can also re-evaluate when it feels right, when the nudge comes up organically. But it’s a good idea to make intentional time to sit down and connect with your values ecosystem.
The Role of Values in Lucid Living
Lucid living is all about consciously participating in co-creating your reality.
In the Lucid Studio ethos, Values are a core part of the trifecta of Vision, Values, and Voice.
Vision asks: What do I see as possible? What future am I moving toward?
Values ask: What do I stand for along the way? What principles guide how I get there?
Voice asks: How do I authentically express and manifest this vision and these values?
Without values, vision becomes untethered fantasy. You can imagine beautiful futures, but without principles to guide your choices, you'll drift or get pulled off course by every wind of opinion.
Without values, voice becomes hollow performance. You can say the right words, but without roots in what you actually stand for, your expression lacks authenticity and power.
Values are the ground that holds vision and gives voice its resonance.
Over time, we will dive much more deeply into the intricacies of values articulation and embodiment.
In future pieces, we'll explore the practical work: how to uncover your core values when they feel buried or unclear, how to distinguish between authentic evolution and reactive wavering, how to navigate values conflicts in relationships and organizations, how to embody your values when external pressures tempt you toward compromise.
But for now, the invitation is simple: begin the practice of bringing consciousness to your values.
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