Faith Hill
- Sep 8, 2022
- 4 min read

Feeling Stuck in Life? How to Use Your Life Values to Get Unstuck & Be Happy

The simple process of understanding your values in life will help you if you feel stuck in life or are stuck in a rut.

Feeling stuck isn’t pleasant. You feel bored, sad, frustrated, unsatisfied. But here is a way to get unstuck and create feelings of enjoyment, lightness, happiness, even freedom. Feeling stuck can feel like wading through mud very day. Now you don’t have to.

Why do I feel stuck?

You feel stuck because something in your life or a certain situation is not working for you anymore. You may not be able to pinpoint exactly what that thing is, or maybe you already know.

At a point in the past, this thing probably did work for you. But you have changed over time and it is now time to re-evaluate so you can stop feeling stuck in a rut.

How to get unstuck

So, what to do when you feel stuck? One of the best life coach techniques I use is a ‘life values audit’. It is a simple process which gives you a deep understanding of who you are and what is important to you.

Once you become clear on what your values in life are, you will stop feeling stuck and start feeling happier, take more action (or productivity) and enjoy life more.

Why? Because when your life is aligned with your life values, your days, activities, relationships and existence are matched with the things which are important to you.

For example, your work becomes more enjoyable because it matches what is important to you. Your relationships and friendships become more fulfilling because you choose to spend time with people with similar values. Your environment (location or home) becomes more satisfying because you choose surroundings which match your values.

"Things ‘fall into place’ in your life because you choose to honour your values" Faith Hill, life coach

What are values?

Your life values are essentially what is important to you. They guide you in life, affect how you spend your time and help you set goals. They also affect how you interact with people and the world around you.

Values definition: “a person's principles or standards of behavior; one's judgment of what is important in life”.

Your list of values may include:

respect
kindness
freedom
security
diversity
variety
family
integrity
personal space
honesty
oragnisation/tidiness/cleanliness
health or wellbeing
sustainability
design
creativity
loyalty
compassion
spirituality
adventure
professionalism
love
financial security
flexibility
connection
career
religion
contribution
fun or play
knowledge
patience
balance
nature
innovation
gratitude
courage

When asked, it is common for people to list the life values they either a) think they should say or b) the life values that their parents’ instilled in them. But I ask you to go deeper, to uncover your own, true, meaningful values. Your values need to be authentic because they motivate you. This is the real key to getting unstuck and knowing yourself better.

What are my life values?

Your life values are what is important to you at this current time.

Your values in life change over time; in three months, next year, in five years.

So I recommend doing a life values audit regularly.

Step 1

To help you uncover your life values, ask yourself the following questions:

1) What do I often daydream about?

2) What do I really enjoy spending my time on, or who with?

3) What inspires me most?

4) Which memories hold the most happiness for me?

5) Who do I admire, and what are their positive qualities?

6) How do I willingly spend my energy?

7) What do I enjoy spending money on?

8) When do I most feel like myself?

Step 2

A second way to uncover your values is to think about what upsets or annoys you. This is an ‘away from value’… something you want to run away from. Ask yourself what is the opposite of that to get the positive value.

For example, you may get annoyed when people eat/speak with their mouth full or don’t say please or thank you, so your value may be manners. Or you get upset if someone mocks your spiritual beliefs or practices, so your value may be spirituality.

Step 3

You will hopefully have a long list of values now. The next step is to consider everything you have written and see if you can combine any similar ones into a higher value. For example, if ‘telling the truth’ and ‘saying what I really want’ came up, these could be combined into ‘honesty’.

Step 4

Now your list of values should be shorter so it is time to prioritise them. Number them in terms of importance, 1 being the most important to you.

How to align with your values

If one area of your life is making you feel stuck the most, start there. Evaluate what it is in that area that is not aligned with your list of values. If you are feeling stuck in life in general, take time to look at all areas.

Examples:

If health or wellness are a high value but you eat poorly or do not exercise, what can you change to get into alignment?

If professionalism is important to you but you work for (or with) unprofessional people, is it time to change jobs?

If kindness or compassion are important to you but a friend is consistently mean, rude or unsupportive, do you want to keep them in your life or spend less time with them and more time with people who are kind and compassionate?

If family is a high value for you, but you don’t see your family often or live far away, could you make more effort or move closer?

If work life balance is important to you but you end up working overtime too often, how can you change this to create more balance for yourself?

It is rare that every area of your life will ever meet all of your values. However, you can get closer to what is important to you in every area of life. The big question is; what are you willing to accept?