Recent Posts
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I use mindfulness in my practice, it’s a valuable tool for me and my client to find ways to manage stress, understand emotions and become kinder to ourselves.
October 17, 2026, 11:53 am
What Is Relational Therapy?
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Managing University Anxiety: A Student’s Guide to Mental Health Support in Nottingham
Starting university in Nottingham can be an exciting new life. Whether you’re studying at the University of Nottingham, Nottingham Trent University,
September 17, 2026, 11:51 am
The last few years have been difficult for all of us and that means we have had to create coping strategies. These may have helped us for a period of time, but if we have coped in a way that has been different to or even completely opposite to our values, it will create stress and anxiety for us.
So just what are values?
Values are many things, such as things and ideas which are important in our lives, living a life based on certain principles that have meaning for us, doing what matters and having a sense of purpose.
These values apply to all of our life career, family, goals etc.
The first thing we need to find out are what are our values, https://scottjeffrey.com/core-values-list/ is a list of over 200 values. We can tick off what is important to us and whittle it down to our top ten values.
Or if lists don’t work we can try to look at what makes us happy, fulfilled, useful, and admired and then compare it with what makes up feel bad, disliked or unskilled. Our values will then become a lot clearer.
Then we perhaps need to look at those values a little closer to see if they are from family, childhood or work? Are they really our values, or have they been imposed upon us? Living someone else’s values makes life hard as we aren’t being authentic.
Now we can look at our life today to see if our career is reflective of what is important to us? Are we feeling stressed or burnt out by our work, often due to overwork and not able to work within our values? Where do we live? How did we get there? Did our values get us there? What do we talk about? Who are our partners and friends? What is really revealing is what do we spend our money on and how often this is reflective of our values. Mine goes on clothes as I really value creativity and colour in my life.
Once we have taken a really good look at our values, we can see what values bring us satisfaction and what values make us unhappy.
Regularly checking in with the values that bring us happiness is important. Is our career within our values? Can we change this or can we find parts of our role that do fulfil our values? Do our relationships meet our values? A good exercise is to explain our values to our partner and let them explain theirs. Where do we match and where do we clash?
Making changes based on our values can be really fulfilling. I have a key value of empathy and I was in management roles in the corporate world and the civil service. I was never fulfilled or happy in those roles as I could not work within one of my most important values.
We need to be aware of the boundaries that our values create and maintain those boundaries. For example, one of my key values is equality and I know that I have to point out inequalities and I have to point it out!
Finally going back to our values and keeping them at the forefront of our major decisions and lifestyle choices will give us a less anxiety filled life and a whole lot more fulfilment.