Why? Well, I was in a downward spiral of exhaustive people pleasing and my core values pulled me out of it.

In October 2018, I was sitting in a mindfulness & leadership training, and I was in the thick of it. You’d never know from the outside looking in, but I was feeling stuck, my new marriage was hanging on for dear life, and I was carrying an immense amount of pressure…“like a drip, drip, drip, that'll never stop…” 🙌 to all the Encanto fans out there!

You see, up until this point in my life, I had made most of my decisions based on external conditioning. I didn’t know that’s what I was doing, but it all came into light during this training when I was asked about my core values.

We did an exercise where we chose words from a list, and I chose words I thought were my values: Kindness, Generosity and Peace.

But then, we did the exercise that changed my life. We took the list away, and we were asked to think about our heroes and name what it was about them that we admired. It was then that I started to peel back some layers and discover my TRUE core values.

The other values from the list? They were rooted in conditioning that made me an ultimate people pleaser. And that’s what was making me feel exhausted and lost.

For the next several months, I began to question everything…and I still do. From when I wore makeup and what I did for exercise to how I fed my baby and the way we celebrated birthdays.

I approached everything with these two questions:

1. Am I doing this because I want to or because I feel obligated to?

2. How can I lean into my core values to guide me through this?

When I took that pause before making decisions–I’m talking about every single decision–I began to live a life designed BY me and not FOR me.

I began to live my life with more clarity, more confidence and a more genuine connection to myself and those around me. I was doing things that fueled me instead of drained me.

Now, this doesn’t mean I suddenly became footloose and fancy free, only making decisions for me, myself and I. I’m a mother, a wife, a community member, a teammate…and so many other things that require thinking about others, too.

But here’s the thing. When I show up to life guided by my TRUE core values, I’m able to show up in a way that ALLOWS me to BETTER SERVE myself AND everyone around me.

This quote from Lisa Nichols, founder of Motivating the Masses, sums all of this up perfectly:

“Your job is to fill your cup so it overflows. Then you can serve others, joyfully, from your saucer.”

So…here I am, living my life and loving it. Finally. My shoulders felt lighter, my marriage was healing and I was genuinely calm and content.

Then, 2020 came.

After the initial shock of it all, I found myself calm amidst the chaos. I found myself talking friends out of complete meltdowns. I found myself coaching colleagues on how to work from home–something I’d been doing for the last three years. I found myself being a helper, a guide, when the world needed me to be. And it filled me in a way I never knew it would.

I was able to remain calm (even while grieving and navigating childcare) because I had made living into my values a part of my modus operandi, or my default operating system.

I’d spent the last two years consciously moving through life. And when a global pandemic hit, I had the skills to respond in a way that kept me calm. I also knew, sadly, that most people had never been given the tools to do what I was able to do. Though they absolutely should, they don’t teach this stuff in school.

I began to think, what can I do to help others consciously, calmly navigate life in a way that’s true to them? And that’s when I became a certified coach with the Academy of Creative Coaching and began my journey as a Values Coach.

So, here I am today still guided by my core values—though they’re a bit different than what they were in 2018—and helping others do the same.

My mission is to help you live yours.

I believe in doing so, we will create a world where we love ourselves so much that we can in turn love others without barriers and without judgment. And our world needs a lot of love right now.