Which means what?

Two colleagues sit down to compare their values lists. Both have Growth, Family and Integrity in the top three.

One takes a stretch role in a different city. The other turns down a near-identical role to stay near school pick-up. Both say the decision came down to their values, and both are right.

The words were never the problem. The words were the same.

A value you cannot break is not a value yet

A single word cannot be broken, so it never gets tested, and it never changes a decision. "Growth" cannot be kept or broken by showing up to work on a typical day.

Add a sentence and it becomes testable.

Growth, which means I choose the job that scares me a little.

The definition is step four of the Values Finder exercise for a reason. It is where your honesty starts. Once the sentence is specific, you can score how fully you are living it, and the score is often lower than the word implied.

The "which means" is what makes a value yours rather than generic.

Two people with Family on the list write two different sentences, and the sentences are the actual values.

Living your values is not a feeling

The usual advice says to align your life with your values, as if alignment were a mood you could check for.

You cannot audit a word against a week. You can audit a sentence.

People assume they are living their values because nothing is obviously wrong. The vague wording is what allows that. A specific sentence has a yes or no answer against what you did with your days.

Coaching people on their values, I have often seen somebody realise that the value is still true but the practice behind it has quietly lapsed.

What I focus on then are the small, simple steps, the experiments, that let them rebuild a habit supporting the value.

Connecting the action back to the value is simple to say and harder to do. It also breaks down into steps that compound faster than people expect.

This week: finish the sentence

Take your top value. Write "which means" after it, and finish the sentence with something that could be broken this week.

Then score it honestly. How fully did you live that sentence in the last seven days, and in the last month?

Finally, say the sentence and the score out loud to the person most affected by it. If the value is Family, that is somebody who cares about you at home. If it is Decisiveness, that might be a trusted colleague.

What did you break it for?

The word was always true. The sentence is where it starts to cost you something.