Values

The Guardrails You Didn't Know You Were Building By

Last week, my husband and I found ourselves standing inside a next chapter question:

Do we knock down our vintage, 900-square-foot cottage… and rebuild?

We’re not worried about craftsmanship. My brother-in-law is an incredible builder. If we decide to do this, the house itself will be stunning.

What we are worried about is something else entirely.

Because if you’ve ever built or renovated anything, you know this part:

It’s not the big decision that gets you.

It’s the next hundred.

How many bedrooms, and for who, now and later?

Do we want openness, or do we actually want nooks?

How do we really entertain, not how we imagine we might?

What will daily life feel like in this space?

Underneath all of it is a quieter, more important question:

What are our can’t-misses?

The things we won’t compromise, no matter how many decisions we have to make.

That’s what guardrails are for.

Standing there, talking it through, it hit me:

This is exactly how most people build their lives.

One decision at a time.

One “sure, that makes sense” at a time.

One default yes at a time.

Until one day you look up and think:

Why does this life feel… not like me?

When something feels “not me,” that’s usually a values signal

There’s a difference between:

Espoused values

what we say we value

and

Values in action

what actually drives our behavior

Often, the discomfort shows up before the clarity.

You feel irritated.

Disconnected.

Restless.

You can’t quite name what’s wrong. Just that something feels off.

Values are deeply held views of what we find worthwhile. They’re shaped by family, culture, school, religion, and people we admired. They’re often coded so deeply that we rarely surface or question them.

Which is why we tend to feel misalignment before we can explain it.

Values aren’t goals. They’re guardrails.

Values don’t tell you what to build.

They keep you from building the wrong thing.

They matter most when decisions get messy.

When tradeoffs appear.

When there isn’t a clearly “right” answer. Just a choice.

Because values in action leave fingerprints.

They show up in:

• what you tolerate

• what you protect

• what you repeatedly say yes to

• how you spend your time and money

• what keeps getting deprioritized, again and again

  
  

If your values don’t show up anywhere in your calendar, they may be aspirational.

Not operational.

This exercise changed how I understand values

In my 20s, I worked with a consulting group and we did an exercise called The Five Whys.

We created a list of what we thought our values were. No surprise, as a new college grad with debt, one of my values was money.

The consultant pushed us to keep asking why until we got underneath the surface answer.

The conversation went like this:

What do you value?

Money. It will make my life easier.

Why?

I want more freedom to buy what we want.

Why?

I want to buy a house on the water in Scituate.

Why?

I want my kids to grow up spending summers barefoot on the beach like I did, and build core memories with their cousins.

Why?

Because I value family connection.

Money wasn’t the value.

It was the expression.

And that’s an important distinction.

For some people, money might express freedom, creativity, travel, craftsmanship, or the joy of building and restoring something beautiful. That might be a home, a car, or something else entirely.

The point isn’t what the value looks like on the surface.

It’s whether you’ve taken the time to understand what’s underneath it.

Values can evolve across different phases of life

Values aren’t static.

The things that drove you for years -advancement, recognition, building something big, proving yourself -those mattered. They were real.

And they may be shifting now.

What mattered most in one season may feel less central in another.

What once felt negotiable may become non-negotiable.

What you were willing to trade away before (time, energy, authenticity, connection) may no longer feel worth it.

This doesn’t mean you were wrong then.

It means the context has changed.

You’ve changed.

If you’re feeling a little guilty about this shift, that’s worth noticing. We used to be taught that changing our values means we were inconsistent, flaky, or didn’t know ourselves.

But that’s not what’s happening.

You do know yourself now.

You’re seeing more clearly.

This isn’t inconsistency.

It’s awareness.

And it’s often why that “not me” feeling shows up.

Your guardrails have shifted, but your life (your calendar, your commitments, your choices) hasn’t caught up yet.

Values work best when they’re revisited, not assumed they stayed the same.

A simple values check-in (no worksheet required)

If you ever pause to ask, Am I on track?

your values deserve a place in that reflection.

Here’s how to make values operational:

1. Think of a recent moment when you felt proud of how you showed up.

What value was present?

2. Think of a recent moment that triggered a “not me” feeling.

What value was stepped on?

3. Choose one value to act as a guardrail for the next 90 days.

Define it in behaviors, not words.

Not family.

But protected dinners, fewer distractions, proactive connection.

Not health.

But movement, rest, and fewer numbing habits.

This is how espoused values become values in action.

If your life is a house you’re building one decision at a time, what are the guardrails you refuse to compromise?

— Carolyn