What is Guiding You?
- kathrynkanzler
- Jul 24
- 2 min read
It’s time to check your navigation tools.
Sometimes the sky gets cloudy and the North Star is hard to see. We get stuck. We are off the path and headed in the wrong direction.
Knowing who and what you care about can help. It’s too easy to get lost in this life — we all need guidance.
How we live our values looks different from person to person. There are many ways to honor your health, relationships, work, recreation, spirituality, or creativity.
The important thing is that our values direct us.* Not the fear of pain, or worries about judgment. Not someone else’s rules that you don’t remember choosing.
What we care most about and what decisions we make can get out of alignment. It seems like a risky thing to follow your internal compass. Sometimes it hurts (badly).
Fear clouds our path. It says we can’t make it up the mountain anyway. Doesn’t matter that the mountain is your health.
Pain says take a detour to where it doesn’t hurt so much. It’s more comfortable over here. Doesn’t matter that your chosen route leads to better relationships.
Unhelpful beliefs and old rules get in the way. They give bad directions, sending us away from where our hearts want to go, preventing us from following our callings.
The Shouldn’ts, Cant’s and What-Ifs are very believable, so we give up what we long to do and take a turn away from the risk of creating art, going back to school, having the difficult conversation, saying no — or saying yes.
But nobody wants fear, pain or somebody else’s opinions to guide their route. Once we realize we got off course, we can always come back.
We can look up and find that North Star. We don’t have to make it miles tonight. Just one step.
The fear and pain always offer escape routes, but they will never take you where you want to go. Only your values can do that.
Just one step towards what is important to you, just one step in the direction of your values.
Just one step.
You just changed your life’s trajectory.
kek
Note: Concepts in this post were informed by ACT and Focused ACT.
*Here are a couple of nice studies showing that embracing your values is linked to better physical and mental functioning:
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