How To Live By Your Values: Examples & Tips For Living In Alignment
With your values outlined and at the ready, it’s time to start putting things into practice.
Living in alignment means that your actions and decisions are informed by and, in turn, fulfill your core values. This involves keeping your values front of mind and turning these insights into action.
We have simple, easy strategies to align your day-to-day life with your values, some examples of what alignment may look like, and tips on staying consistent over time.
This is our 4th post of our Values-Based Living Series—a series created to give you an in-depth, holistic guide on values and their role in your life.
Living in alignment leads to more intentional living, which tends to be the most exciting part of the process, especially when you start seeing and feeling its impact in your life.
It won’t happen immediately, but there is this almost instant feeling of relief people describe when they can just see what it is they truly care about in front of them. It’s liberating and fulfilling to identify it, let alone apply it. Let’s get aligning!
Here’s what to expect for this post:
How To Align Your Decisions With Your Core Values
There are many ways to start aligning your decisions with your core values. One of the easiest ways, and our personal favourite at Little Lydia, is to categorise your values across the most important areas in your life. Our simple term for these areas in life is: Life Categories.
Why Life Categories Are Useful
Not all values across your Life Categories are created equal. One category is likely to weigh more than another (or the others) depending on the season of life you are in at the time.
It is natural for some areas to take priority over others at different points, which is why Life Categories are effective in helping you align with your values.
They provided specificity and clarity, while still acknowledging that the areas not currently in the spotlight are still important and relevant to you.
Life Categories help segregate personal, professional, and other decisions you will have to make
e.g., decisions about finances, goals, social activities, studies, career path, etc.
You might have values that overlap between categories, but your actions and decisions may differ between the two. Your Life Categories can then help you align your actions and decisions in a more specific and aligned way for that area.
How To Use Life Categories For Aligning Decisions and Actions Daily
When faced with decision-making in a particular Life Category (e.g., finances), you can:
Actively view your values (see Section 3, Tip #2 for more details);
Ask yourself about what this decision means for you in that particular area; and
Determine whether or not it aligns with your values (see examples in Section 2).
Through journalling and self-reflection, including what went well and what you would like to try moving forward
e.g., How did I align my actions with any one of my values today? Or this week? This month?
Life Category Examples
In our in-depth guide to identifying your core values, I provided an example of how I used categories to identify and apply my values more effectively.
As a quick recap, I have 5 different categories at the time of writing this post (March 2025): Personal, Life, Little Lydia, Work, and Relationship. These are what I have identified as important to me and my chosen values have been categorised under the area (Life Category) they suit best.
Other Life Category examples are:
Family & Relationships
Health & Wellbeing
Friendships & Social Circles
Recreation & Hobbies
Career
Studies
Examples Of Applying Values To Everyday Living
While there are many ways we can apply our values to everyday living and life events, we sometimes need just an example to show us what it means to align ourselves with them.
Your values can be used on an every day basis for things such as purchases, doing exercise, what time to wake up or go to sleep. They can also be used with bigger decisions such as weddings, holidays, careers, studies, which are equally as important as the smaller, compounding, day-to-day things.
Example: Decisions About Finances & Social Activities
One example is making decisions about our finances and social activities. Everyone has their own money story and way of managing their finances. Because of this, saying yes or no to events, or negotiating a different plan to better align with values may be needed for some people in these instances.
For example, a last-minute brunch invite. For someone who values travel or adventure and is saving for an overseas trip, attending this brunch might mean dipping into their savings.
When aligning with their value of travel or adventure, assessing their financial situation would mean asking, "Does this align with my value of travel or adventure if I dip into my current savings for my overseas trip to attend this last-minute brunch with my friends?"
It’s likely that dipping into their savings does not align with their value of travel or adventure. However this isn't a definitive "no" to catching up. Instead, this person could suggest an alternative kind of catch-up, like going for a walk or having a picnic—activities that are more affordable for similar social interactions. If that isn’t possible, they may give this invite a miss and arrange another time to catch up.
This is an example of living in alignment with one’s values. Before acting or decision-making, assessing potential conflict or misalignment ensures we are actively working towards alignment and being more intentional.
My Very Honest Personal Example: My Midwifery Career vs My Health & Wellbeing
For an in-depth, transparent example of what misalignment and re-alignment may look like, I’ve written an entire blog post about my personal experience, which you can read here.
I’ve shared what I learned about my values, my authenticity and my wellbeing. I’ve shared how it’s led me to where I am today running Little Lydia to help others with their personal growth journey and their values. It’s an example beyond the everyday alignment that I hope will help others see where they too have chosen (or not chosen) their values without even knowing it.
Staying Aligned With Your Values: Little Tips For Consistency
Tip #1: Experiment & Adapt Starting Right Where You Are
Action: Adapt your habits and/or environment to better suit aligning and living out your values.
Experiment with different ways that are easy enough to stack onto your existing habits, or that won’t take up a lot of your time and energy, especially to begin with.
Keyword: experiment.
Your first adaptation won’t be your last. Try out a small change, gather your data on how it went, then determine if it aligns with you.
Addit: If it’s no longer working for you, despite it being so to begin with, experiment again.
Remember, it’s all about alignment here. If it doesn’t align, it’s experiment time!
Example:
Someone who values having monthly massages because it contributes positively to their wellbeing and stress release, but they don’t have regular money set aside for it (yet).
They could open up a bank account specifically for these appointments and have regular automated transfers into it, including its importance in their budget.
If it is a bank that has round-up functions, turn it on so that every transaction automatically rounds up to the nearest (or chosen) dollar amount and transfers that round up amount to this account.
Adaptation: Some upfront budgeting and automating to begin with, but ends up being a set and forget once the change is in place!
How it aligns: For someone who values their downtime and stress release, they have accounted for this important ritual by including it in their budget, setting up automations, and making it easier for them to have the resources when it comes to massage time.
Personal Example: ‘Gratitude’ is (consistently) one of my values, so I’ve adapted what I can to make it as easy as possible for me to align myself with this value.
In my previous job, I always drove into town early to beat traffic and get a carpark. This meant I had at least an hour up my sleeve before work started.
I journaled at a cafe every morning before work because I was already there early, therefore stacking this habit (journaling and reflecting on my values) with another (arriving to work early).
In an app I use to log my emotions, I have created templates for capturing gratitude quickly and easily. This quick access and layout has made it so much easier to just click on it and type away in moments when I have a spare minute, like waiting in line or for an appointment.
Tip #2: Keep Your Values In Sight & Close By
Action: Keep your values close by and try to have them as easily accessible as possible.
Make it easier for you to view them often to help remind you of intentionality and how you’ll feel when you’re aligned with your values.
This helps decrease resistance we may feel when actively aligning with our values.
Examples:
Write them into the front of your journal and planner.
Take a photo of your values and set it as your wallpaper.
Type up your values, even make a visually appealing graphic with your values with free design resources like Canva, then set it as your wallpaper or print them out to put on your fridge or around your house.
Have a photo or graphic of your values and display it using a photo widget on your home screen. This means you can keep your favourite wallpaper and still have your values in sight (this is my personal favourite).
Tip #3: Engage With Your Values Often
Action: With your values already in sight and close by, simply reading them one value at a time at different points throughout your day, week or month can remind you of your alignment.
It’s still important, however, for you to actively engage with them in other ways, so you can practice using them for your actions and decision-making.
Examples:
Values Dates: Set dates to revisit your values (e.g., 6 months after identifying them) and make a date out of it!
Self-reflection & journaling: Engage in daily, weekly, monthly (or however regularly suits you) and ask yourself how you have or haven’t been aligned with your values.
These exercises are for metrics (data) to inform your decisions; not a report card of grades!
Without looking at the impact of your values and alignment, or lack thereof, you won’t know what’s working and what isn’t. It’s all part of your experimenting, being more intentional and living life aligned with you.
Remember that living in alignment with your values doesn’t have to be this huge change you make to your life. In fact, it’s more of a gradual, intentional adjustment and before you know it, you’re feeling closer to peace, contentment and fulfillment.
By segregating your values across Life Categories, you can make more specific and tailored decisions and actions that align with you best. Having seen values alignment examples, it’s likely you’re already living out these values in some parts of your life without really knowing it. And by trying different ways to remain consistent, you’re already starting to live out your values.
Just remember that this process needn’t be overwhelming or scary. In fact, this type of self-exploration and personal development is more freeing as you start becoming more aligned with who you are.
As you start discovering your core values, we can’t help but get excited for you! Welcome to more freedom to focus on what truly matters. Welcome to room for life’s bigger moments.
- Little Lydia
Still have questions about the process?
Feel free to reach out to us here! As your authenticity’s biggest advocates, we’re always here to help you at any stage of your journey and we would love to hear from you