Maybe you have a job, but you're completely unfulfilled. You're climbing the corporate ladder and collecting paychecks, but deep down you know this isn't what you want to be doing for the next twenty years of your life.
Or maybe you're ready to make a career change but have absolutely no idea which direction to turn. Everyone keeps telling you to "follow your passion," but here's the thing: you have no freaking idea what your passion even is. You've tried those career quizzes online, scrolled through endless job boards, and maybe even considered going back to school, but nothing feels quite right.
No matter what your specific situation looks like, I'm going to take a wild guess about how you're feeling right now. You feel stuck, frustrated, maybe even a little lost, and you're probably freaking out to varying degrees about your professional future.
Here's what I want you to know: I feel you. I really, really do. I have been exactly where you are, my friend, staring at the ceiling at 2 AM wondering if I'm wasting my life in the wrong career. And here's the good news: there's actually a clear place to start figuring this whole thing out, and it's probably not what you expect.
Why Most Career Advice Fails (And What Actually Works)
Before we dive into the solution, let's talk about why you're feeling so stuck in the first place. Most career advice falls into one of two categories: either it's completely generic ("update your resume and network!") or it's based on the myth that everyone has one true calling they need to discover.
The "follow your passion" advice sounds inspiring, but it creates enormous pressure to identify some burning interest that can magically transform into a profitable career. What if you don't have a singular passion? What if you have multiple interests? What if your passions don't translate into viable career paths?
The reality is that career satisfaction isn't about finding your one true calling. Multiple research studies have consistently shown that people who do work that aligns with their core values are significantly more satisfied and successful in their careers than those who focus solely on passion or money.
This finding changes everything about how you should approach career decision making. Instead of asking "What am I passionate about?" or "What will make me the most money?" the question becomes: "What are my values, and how can my work express them?"
What Are Values (And Why They Matter More Than Passion)
Your values are the fundamental beliefs and principles that guide your decisions and behavior. They're the things that matter most to you, the non negotiables that make you feel fulfilled and authentic when they're honored, and frustrated or empty when they're violated.
Values are different from interests, skills, or even passions because they tend to remain stable throughout your life, even as your specific interests and circumstances change. A person who values creativity might express that through graphic design in their twenties, marketing strategy in their thirties, and writing in their forties. The value remains constant even as the expression evolves.
Here's why values matter more than passion for career satisfaction:
Values provide direction without limiting options. While passion might point you toward one specific field, values can be expressed through dozens of different career paths, giving you flexibility and multiple routes to fulfillment.
Values help you make decisions. When you're clear about what matters most to you, career choices become much easier. You can evaluate opportunities based on whether they align with your core values rather than trying to predict whether you'll be "passionate" about work you've never done.
Values create sustainable motivation. Passion can fade, but work that consistently honors your values will continue to feel meaningful even during challenging periods.
Values guide work life integration. When your career values align with your personal values, you experience less internal conflict and more overall life satisfaction.
The Hidden Influence of Other People's Values
One of the biggest obstacles to identifying your authentic values is the noise of other people's expectations and opinions. From childhood, we absorb messages about what we "should" value from family, friends, society, and culture.
Maybe your family values financial security above all else, so you've unconsciously adopted the belief that any career choice must prioritize salary over other considerations. Perhaps your social circle highly values prestige, so you feel pressure to pursue roles with impressive titles rather than meaningful work.
Common External Value Influences:
Family expectations about "practical" or "respectable" career paths
Cultural messages about success, money, and status
Peer pressure to match others' career choices or lifestyle goals
Educational influences that emphasized certain types of achievement
Media portrayals of successful careers and lifestyles
The challenge is separating these external influences from your authentic internal values. What do YOU actually care about, not what you think you should care about based on other people's opinions?
Discovering Your Authentic Career Values
Getting clear about your values requires honest self reflection and a willingness to dig deeper than surface level answers. It's not enough to say you value "success" or "happiness." You need to understand what success and happiness actually mean to you specifically.
The Peak Experiences Method
Think back to moments in your life, both personal and professional, when you felt most energized, satisfied, and authentically yourself. These peak experiences often reveal your core values in action.
Questions to explore:
What were you doing during these peak moments?
Who were you with, if anyone?
What values were being honored or expressed?
What made these experiences so satisfying?
How did you feel about yourself and your contribution?
The Frustration Analysis Method
Sometimes it's easier to identify values by examining what frustrates or drains you. When you feel particularly irritated or unfulfilled at work, it's often because one of your core values is being violated.
Reflection questions:
What work situations consistently drain your energy?
What types of environments make you feel uncomfortable or inauthentic?
What behaviors from colleagues or supervisors particularly bother you?
When do you feel like you're "selling out" or compromising who you are?
The opposite of these frustrations often points toward your core values.
The Role Model Analysis Method
Think about people whose careers you admire, not necessarily for their fame or fortune, but for how they approach their work and life. What values do these people embody that resonate with you?
This isn't about copying someone else's career path, but rather identifying the underlying values and principles that attract you to their approach.
Common Career Values (And What They Look Like in Practice)
To help you start identifying your own values, here are some common career values and how they might show up in work situations:
Autonomy and Independence
You value having control over how, when, and where you work. You're energized by roles that give you flexibility and decision making authority, and you're frustrated by micromanagement or rigid structures.
Careers that often honor this value: Consulting, freelancing, entrepreneurship, remote work roles, research positions
Impact and Service
You're motivated by making a meaningful difference in the world, whether that's helping individuals, contributing to important causes, or solving significant problems.
Careers that often honor this value: Non profit work, healthcare, education, social work, environmental careers, public service
Creativity and Innovation
You value opportunities to generate new ideas, solve problems creatively, or express artistic vision. You're energized by brainstorming, designing, and creating something that didn't exist before.
Careers that often honor this value: Design, marketing, writing, product development, arts, advertising, architecture
Financial Security and Growth
You value earning enough money to live comfortably and build financial stability for yourself and your family. There's absolutely nothing wrong with prioritizing financial reward.
Careers that often honor this value: Sales, finance, law, medicine, technology, executive roles, entrepreneurship
Learning and Growth
You're motivated by continuously developing new skills, understanding complex topics, and expanding your expertise. You value challenges that stretch your capabilities.
Careers that often honor this value: Research, academia, technology, consulting, training and development, journalism
Collaboration and Community
You're energized by working closely with others toward shared goals. You value strong relationships with colleagues and prefer collaborative environments over isolated work.
Careers that often honor this value: Team based roles, project management, HR, event planning, community organizing
Recognition and Achievement
You value being acknowledged for your contributions and accomplishments. You're motivated by goals, metrics, and visible success markers.
Careers that often honor this value: Sales, competitive industries, leadership roles, performance based positions
Stability and Predictability
You value consistency, clear expectations, and reliable routines. You prefer environments with established processes and predictable outcomes.
Careers that often honor this value: Government work, established corporations, healthcare, education, operations roles
Matching Your Values to Career Opportunities
Once you've identified your core values, the next step is evaluating career opportunities through this lens. This approach helps you make decisions based on fit rather than external pressures or vague notions of what you "should" want.
The Values Alignment Assessment
For any career opportunity you're considering, ask yourself:
Primary Values Match: Does this role directly express or honor your top three values?
Values Conflict: Are there aspects of this opportunity that would violate or compromise your core values?
Growth Potential: Could this role evolve in ways that would better align with your values over time?
Compensation for Misalignment: If the role doesn't perfectly match your values, what would make the trade off worthwhile? (This might be financial, skill building, or strategic career positioning)
Creating Your Values Based Career Strategy
Your values should inform not just your next job choice, but your overall career strategy:
Short term decisions: Choose roles that honor at least some of your core values while building skills and experience for better aligned opportunities.
Long term planning: Identify career paths and industries where your values are commonly expressed and valued.
Skill development: Focus on building capabilities that are both marketable and aligned with your values.
Network building: Connect with professionals whose careers exemplify the values based approach you want to pursue.
When Values Conflict: Making Tough Decisions
Sometimes you'll face situations where your values seem to conflict with each other or with practical realities. Maybe you value both financial security and creative expression, but the creative roles you're interested in don't pay enough to support your lifestyle goals.
Strategies for navigating values conflicts:
Prioritize temporarily: Decide which values are most critical to honor in your current life stage, with the understanding that priorities can shift over time.
Seek creative integration: Look for roles that combine multiple values or industries that are evolving to accommodate different priorities.
Portfolio approach: Meet different values through different aspects of your life. Your day job might honor financial and stability values while volunteer work or side projects express creativity and service values.
Negotiate and customize: Many roles can be shaped to better align with your values through negotiation, special projects, or gradual responsibility shifts.
Building a Career Around Your Values (Not Other People's Expectations)
The most important part of values based career planning is learning to trust your own judgment over other people's opinions. This means being willing to disappoint Aunt Susan who thinks you should be a guidance counselor, or your college friends who expect you to prioritize salary above all else.
Strategies for staying true to your values:
Practice explaining your choices: Be prepared to articulate why your career decisions make sense based on your values, even if others don't immediately understand.
Find like minded community: Seek out people who share similar values or who have successfully built careers around principles that matter to them.
Regular values check ins: Periodically reassess whether your career is still aligned with your values, and be prepared to make adjustments as you grow and change.
Celebrate values based wins: Acknowledge when you make decisions that honor your authentic values, even if they're not the most obvious or popular choices.
Your Values Are Your Career Compass
Here's what I want you to remember: there is no universal definition of a meaningful career. What's meaningful to you might be completely different from what's meaningful to your partner, your parents, your best friend, or your Instagram feed.
If meaningful work to you means making enough money to never worry about ordering extra guac at Chipotle, that's absolutely valid. If meaningful means helping a non profit that supports orphans, that's beautiful too. If meaningful means having the flexibility to travel, or the stability to build a family, or the creativity to design beautiful things, or the recognition that comes with high achievement, all of those are legitimate values worth building a career around.
The key is that your career needs to be meaningful to YOU.
Some career experts will tell you to focus these questions solely on work, but I believe your career values and your life values need to align, or you're just not going to be happy. Your career takes up too much of your time and energy to be completely separate from who you are as a person.
So be honest with yourself and dig deep:
Do you value social change or being of service?
Do you value community connection or the freedom of a nomadic lifestyle?
Do you value creativity and problem solving?
Do you value financial reward and security?
Do you value learning and intellectual growth?
Do you value recognition and achievement?
Do you value collaboration or independent work?
You have to ask yourself: what are the values that are most significant to you, right now, at this stage of your life?
Ready to Build a Career That Actually Fits Who You Are?
Understanding your values is just the first step in creating a career that feels authentic and fulfilling. The next steps involve translating those values into specific career strategies, identifying opportunities that align with what matters most to you, and developing the skills and network you need to access those opportunities.
If you're ready to stop feeling stuck and start building a career around what actually matters to you (not what everyone else thinks you should want), I'd love to help. Career transitions based on authentic values are some of the most successful because they're built on a foundation of self knowledge rather than external expectations or fleeting interests.
Your values are your career compass. Once you know what direction you're heading, every decision becomes clearer, every opportunity easier to evaluate, and every step forward more confident.
To help you determine your values and figure out what work will be meaningful for you, only you, and totally not Aunt Susan, don’t forget to download your free 5 Big Questions worksheets.
Yours in ‘your values are important’ goodness,
EBS
—-
EB Sanders
Career Coach for Creative Types
My Website | Free Stuff | Pinterest
Helping you figure out what you want to do and how to do it your way!
