Bringing Values to Life

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.