In Midlife, Some Values Start to Feel Like They Don’t Fit Anymore
What your values actually are in midlife.
If you are in midlife and something feels quietly off, like you have been doing everything right but still feel like something is missing, it might be worth looking at your values. Not your goals, not your roles. The deeper layer: what you actually believe matters, and whether you have ever consciously chosen it.
The first time I consciously thought about my core values was during my coach training. I was 39. Yet I am pretty sure that my values had always been my compass, even if unconsciously.
Curiosity, Adventure, Awe and Magic, Self-Growth, Learning, Humor, Freedom were a big part of who I was up until that point. I was not conscious of them, but these were values that were always part of the tapestry of who I was. My cornerstones, the pillars I was standing on. I was an active kid at school, I would participate in a thousand things, always overwhelmed but loving every minute of it. I loved studying, following my curiosity. I remember laughter and jokes about myself and life. I would travel, I would move countries and I would stay.
At 27 I started my entrepreneurial journey in hospitality and at 29 I became a mom for the first time. Since then Family as a value would strongly become present. For the next ten years, life just got busier and heavier. The business grew and gained complexity. The family grew and gained complexity. Covid added challenges to the hospitality business and moving from 2 kids to 4 at once was its own kind of adventure to experience. Suddenly that curious, funny, freedom-loving girl started feeling heavier under all the responsibilities and circumstances. To say I was surviving rather than thriving would not be an understatement.
Until one day at age 43 she would wake up and wonder: “Who am I now?”
She would try to remember how it felt before all the roles and responsibilities took over. She would try to remember parts of herself that were getting forgotten. And slowly and calmly she would start remembering and rethinking what her values looked like now, and how she would want them to look in the future she dreams of.
What Your Values Actually Are
Your values are your compass. They are the guiding principles and beliefs for your life. Your decisions, your goals, your dreams, all stem from this compass. Your values are part of your identity, and some of them you inherit, while some of them you choose based on who you are.
The social psychologist Milton Rokeach divided values into instrumental and terminal values. The first type covers the mode of conduct for your behaviors (being honest, kind, ambitious, loving), while the second covers desired end states (happiness, freedom, security, inner harmony).
At some point in life you might start feeling the urge to let go of the values you have inherited. The values that are not really yours. Your parents taught you some of their values, your school, peers and society introduced you to others. And likely the context you belong to, your community, your workplace, follows its own set of values that you have simply gotten used to.
Midlife is often the season when people feel it is time for a proper revision of these fundamental beliefs and principles. It simply starts to be harder to live a life that is out of alignment with your core values and with who you are. This curiosity, or shall we say necessity, can be triggered by the changes you experience, but also by the pressure of time passing.
It is not that your values change overnight. It is more that you change enough to arrive at a point where you are finally ready to have a more honest look at your life. You are ready to question whether the values that have been guiding you are actually yours, or still relevant to who you are today and who you want to become.
And once you have a clearer sense of this, you can make more informed decisions and set guided intentions. You can let go of what no longer serves you and choose to focus on what makes your life feel more meaningful and purposeful.
What It Looks Like to Live by Your Values
If human connection is what matters to you, you can choose to move away from a job that treats people as numbers. If trust and respect are important to you, you can end relationships that are not in accordance with these values. If you have always valued contact with nature, you can intentionally find ways to reinforce this bond. If friendships are important to you, you can intentionally find ways to nurture them.
Lean into whatever you value. Let this knowing be your guidance for the second part of your life. The more aligned you become with what you value and who you are, the more meaningful you perceive your life to be. And the more in integrity you are with yourself, the more magnetic you will become for the good things, for good luck, for good people.
Reviewing your values in midlife is not a big dramatic event. It is a quiet reflection about what no longer serves you and what needs more space in your life. I do not have this all figured out, I am pretty much in the middle of this process, but I do feel strongly what I need to let go of. And knowing what no longer serves you is the first step. Letting go of it will create space for what actually matters and is meaningful for you.
What about you?
Do you know which of your values you chose, and which ones were passed on to you?
Do you know which ones are important today and which ones you should let go?
Or shall I ask: do you even know what your core values are?
Love, C.
