Bringing Values to Life
Author: Robyn Straley, 30kft Coaching
A standard coaching exercise is the Life Values Worksheet. You’re handed a page of words and asked to circle the ones that matter most. Sometimes there are reflection steps to narrow the list further, until you arrive at your “core values.”
It’s a fine place to begin. But here’s what I’ve found: a word on a page doesn’t always carry enough weight to guide your life.
Courage. Integrity. They’re beautiful words. But unless you can picture how they walk, talk, and breathe through daily choices, they stay flat.
Take one of my own values. On a worksheet, the closest words I’d probably circle are Gratitude, Appreciation, Presence, Reciprocity, or Mindfulness. All lovely words. But none of them captured what I truly needed.
So I wrote my own sentence: Be an appreciative audience.
Suddenly the value wasn’t abstract. It was relational. It reminded me of how I want to show up in the world: witnessing others with joy, reverence, and attention.
Then I paired it with a quote that grounds me: “To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” — Mary Oliver
When I strung all my values together as sentences, quotes, and images, they became a credo with rhythm and meaning. Seeing them as a whole nearly brought me to my knees. They finally felt like a compass I could trust.
And here’s what I suspect: the form that makes your values real will be different for everyone. For some, circling words and narrowing the list is enough. For others, you may need to dig a few layers deeper until your values become something you can actually follow when the path gets unclear.
If the words on a page have ever felt flat to you, maybe it’s not you. Maybe your values are waiting for a form that makes them come alive.
Worth Reading: Tara Mohr on Change
On a resource I return to again and again.
Author: Robyn Straley, 30kft Coaching
There are certain resources I return to again and again, not because they’re flashy or new, but because they’re true.
This one by Tara Mohr is one of them:
It’s short. It’s clear. And if you’re navigating change (or helping someone else through it) it holds up like a compass.
“Don’t ask yourself what you think about the change. Ask yourself what you know.”
This piece helps me remember that clarity isn’t always a matter of logic. It’s often a matter of tuning into what’s already present: your body, your wisdom, your knowing. I won’t spoil the five things here, but I will say this: they’re not trendy tricks. They’re practices that honor your inner authority.
Which of her five invitations do you most need right now?
The Circle
On drawing circles to claim space.
Author: Robyn Straley, 30kft Coaching
"The great mythologist, Joseph Campbell, once said: Here’s how humans make something sacred: You draw a circle around it and you say everything inside this circle is holy. It’s sacred because you said so. That is called a boundary, and a boundary is not a wall. A boundary is not something that you hide behind. A boundary is a golden circle that you draw around the things that matter to you, and you say everything inside this circle is sacred… You get to decide what is sacred. The sacred thing inside the circle can be your time, your creativity, your loved ones, your privacy, your recovery, your values, your mental health, your activism, your joy, your very heart and soul. You yourself can stand at the center of a sacred circle that you drew around YOUR VERY OWN BEING, and say, 'Everything inside this circle is holy.' Not because you think you’re better than anyone else, but because you have humbly accepted stewardship over the divine and mysterious gift of the universe that is YOU.” - Elizabeth Gilbert
Field Notes
There comes a time when you stop waiting for the apology that won’t come,
and instead draw a circle around your life.
Not to keep love out,
but to protect what is sacred within.
You don’t have to explain the boundary to people
who were never willing to see you in the first place.
This is your circle.
You set the terms.
Only those who know how to behave inside the circle
get to stay inside the circle.
Not because you’re cruel,
but because you’re healing.
You are not walking away.
You are claiming space.
And anything that enters now must bring peace, or pass by.
This truth can be passed down.
This circle can be drawn again and again—by you, by others, by those still learning
that their story deserves safety,
and their voice is not too much.