What Am I Doing With My Life? A Simple Values Exercise to Help You Find Direction
- Apr 26
- 4 min read
If you’ve been asking yourself, "What am I doing with my life?", you’re not alone.
That question usually doesn’t come out of nowhere. It tends to show up when something feels off, when you’re going through the motions, or when you’re doing all the “right” things but still don’t feel fulfilled.
One of the ways I approach this in therapy is through a values exercise that helps people get clear about what actually matters to them and whether their lives reflect that. And the good news is, you can try this on your own!
More often than not, that “what am I doing with my life” feeling comes down to one thing: your values.
What Are Values and Why Do They Matter?
Values are the things that are important to you. They guide your decisions, your priorities, and how you spend your time and energy. But here’s where people get stuck.
You can think you know your values, but if your day-to-day life doesn’t reflect them, that’s when the “what am I doing with my life” feeling starts to creep in. There isn’t a right or wrong set of values.
But there is a difference between:
Values you’ve chosen
Values you’ve inherited
And values you’re actually living
And that gap is where much of the frustration comes from.
Why You Might Feel Lost or Stuck in Life
If you’re questioning your direction or asking, " What am I doing with my life?", it’s often tied to a mismatch between your values and your behavior.
Some common reasons this happens:
You haven’t clearly identified your values
You’ve identified them, but your life doesn’t reflect them
You’re living by values that don’t feel true anymore
You’re prioritizing what others expect instead of what matters to you
When your life and your values don’t align, it creates an unsettled, off-track feeling.
How to Identify Your Values (A Therapy Exercise You Can Do On Your Own)
If you’re trying to figure out what you’re doing with your life, this is a practical place to start.
This is the same values assessment I often use in therapy, and it can be just as helpful to walk through on your own.
Scroll to the end of this post for a full values list and follow these steps.
Step 1: Highlight What Matters
Go through the list of values and write down everything that stands out to you.
If you copy over a bunch, that’s okay
If you only pick a few, that’s okay
This step is just about noticing what feels important.
Step 2: Group Your Values
Take what you selected and group them into categories.
For example:
Financial stability, security, and success might go together
Family, connection, and belonging might go together
Try to narrow it down to no more than five groups. These become your core value areas.
Step 3: Choose Your Core Values
Look at your groups and ask:
Which of these feels the most important? Or which one seems to represent the others?
From there, identify your core values. Not the ones you should pick.The ones that actually reflect you.
Are You Living in Alignment With Your Values?
This is the question that tends to answer "What am I doing with my life?" more than anything else.
Does your life actually reflect your values? When there’s a gap between what you say matters and how you’re living, that’s where the discomfort shows up.
This disconnect can show up in subtle ways:
You value family, but feel disconnected or distant
You value rest, but never allow yourself to slow down
You value growth, but avoid anything uncomfortable
When your behavior doesn’t match your values, it creates tension. That tension often feels like anxiety, frustration, or feeling lost.
What To Do If Your Life Doesn’t Match Your Values
There isn’t one right answer here, but awareness gives you options. Depending on your situation, alignment might look like:
Making small changes in how you spend your time
Reprioritizing what gets your energy
Letting go of habits that don’t reflect your values
Redefining what certain values mean to you
For example, if family is important but your relationships are complicated, alignment doesn’t have to mean fixing everything. It might mean redefining connection or building support systems that feel safe and meaningful.
When Your Values Change
Sometimes you’re not doing anything wrong. Sometimes your values are just evolving. If you’re living in alignment but still asking, "What am I doing with my life?" it might be time to reassess what actually matters to you now, not what mattered before.
Final Thought
If you keep asking yourself, "What am I doing with my life?" this is where to start. Not with a full life overhaul. Not with a perfect plan. Start with your values. What matters to you? And does your life reflect that?
If you’re realizing that something feels off but you’re not sure how to fix it, this is exactly the kind of work therapy can help with. Having a space to sort through your values, your patterns, and what alignment could realistically look like in your life can make this feel a lot clearer and more manageable.
Values List
Abundance, Acceptance, Accountability, Achievement, Adaptability, Adventure, Advocacy, Altruism, Ambition, Authenticity, Balance, Beauty, Being the best, Belonging, Bravery, Career, Caring, Challenge, Collaboration, Comfort, Commitment, Community, Compassion, Competence, Competition, Confidence, Connection, Contentment, Contribution, Cooperation, Courage, Creativity, Curiosity, Dedication, Dignity, Diligence, Diversity, Drive, Efficiency, Environment, Equality, Ethics, Excellence, Fairness, Faith, Family, Financial Stability, Forgiveness, Freedom, Friendship, Fun, Future Generations, Generosity, Giving Back, Grace, Gratitude, Growth, Harmony, Health, Home, Honesty, Hope, Humility, Humor, Impact, Inclusion, Independence, Individuality, Initiative, Innovation, Integrity, Intelligence, Intuition, Joy, Justice, Kindness, Knowledge, Leadership, Learning, Legacy, Leisure, Love, Loyalty, Making a Difference, Mastery, Nature, Openness, Optimism, Order, Originality, Parenting, Patience, Patriotism, Peace, Perseverance, Personal Fulfillment, Playfulness, Power, Pride, Recognition, Reliability, Resourcefulness, Respect, Responsibility, Risk-Taking, Safety, Security, Self-Discipline, Self-Expression, Self-Reliance, Self-Respect, Serenity, Service, Simplicity, Spirituality, Sportsmanship, Stability, Status, Stewardship, Structure, Success, Teamwork, Thrift, Time, Tradition, Transparency, Travel, Trust, Truth, Understanding, Uniqueness, Unity, Usefulness, Vision, Vulnerability, Wealth, Well-Being, Wholeheartedness, Wisdom, Wonder
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