Why the decision didn’t change anything – and what actually will
I’ve had several conversations following last week’s newsletter, mostly around the nature of the decision.
A quick recap. You made the decision – and you meant it. And then nothing changed. Or more precisely – things changed for a while, and then drifted back. The old pattern reasserted itself, the old habits crept in, and you were left wondering what went wrong.
The decision is only as durable as the values it’s rooted in. Let’s read that again, slowly.
The decision is only as durable as the values it’s rooted in.
Most of us have never actually chosen our values. We inherited them. The culture we worked inside, the version of success held up as the standard when we were finding our feet. By the time we sat down and wrote a values list – if we ever did – we were mostly regurgitating what was already there. The default, dressed up as a deliberate choice.
You know what I mean. Money, lots of it. The nice cars, the big house, the expensive holidays. And with those aspirations come unspoken expectations – that you’ll work like a dog, your relationship might take a hit, and somewhere along the way you’ll realise the people who matter most are getting whatever’s left at the end of the day – if there’s anything left at all These aren’t really choices. They’re the accepted cost of getting what you thought you wanted.
Age changes us. Life stage changes us. The things that once drove you – building something from nothing, proving yourself – perhaps more than you should ever have had to – reaching a certain level … These may have served their purpose and quietly stepped aside. What matters now might be something different entirely. More presence. More meaning. More room to breathe.
I do a values exercise with most clients, and the same thing happens nearly every time. They come in with values they believe are theirs. After some digging, they realise several belong to an earlier version of themselves – or were handed to them by an industry, a culture, or a world that had its own ideas about what success should look like for someone like them. The person who started the business ten or fifteen years ago had different priorities, different fears, a different definition of what mattered. You are simply not that person any more.
If the decision is tied to values that no longer resonate, it will always feel like pushing against something. The decision is real – but the engine behind it isn’t yours any more.
But a decision rooted in what genuinely matters to you now has a different quality. It pulls rather than pushes. You don’t have to keep reminding yourself why you made it.
Changing your values isn’t inconsistency – it’s honesty. It takes courage to admit and integrity to act on. You are letting go of what used to matter, without apology, so you can give your full attention to what actually does. That’s not starting over: it’s finally starting properly.
So if a decision still feels like wading through mud – it might be worth asking whether the values underneath it are the ones you chose, or the ones you inherited.
It’s a different question from the one most people are asking. But in my experience, it’s usually the right one.
When you look at what’s driving your biggest current decisions – how much of that is genuinely yours? Drop something in the comments if you’re willing. I’m genuinely asking, not setting up a pitch.