YOUR VALUES AREN'T A FREE PASS

Derek Hagen
13 minutes ago
3 min read

❝The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.❞ -Michael Porter

Knowing what you value is the beginning. Choosing between values is the real work.

I worked with someone who habitually overspent. He inherited a lot of money in his twenties, and that money opened the door to a lot of spending. As a result, he got accustomed to a certain lifestyle. Naturally, it didn't take long for his inheritance to dwindle. He sold his third house, then his second. Eventually he sold his main home and moved into an apartment, which he was embarrassed by, yet he wouldn't sell his expensive European vehicle. "People like him don't drive Toyotas," he said.

When we talked about values, adventure scored high. He had spent years doing whatever he wanted without thinking about long-term ramifications. He was spending 15 to 20,000 dollars a year on skydiving.

"But that's what I value," he'd say.

He wasn't wrong. Adventure was a genuine value of his. But where he saw adventure and values, he wasn't seeing the cost. He wasn't seeing the unnamed value he was sacrificing for it: security.

WHEN VALUES BECOME RATIONALIZATIONS

Most people have had a version of this conversation with themselves. There's something they want, and they reach for a value to justify it. The value is real. The desire is real. But the reasoning is backward.

There's a difference between a values-based decision and a values-justified one.

Values-based decisions say, "I've weighed this against my other values and my constraints and chosen accordingly."

Values-justified decisions say, "I want this, and I value it, so I'll do it."

VALUES DON'T EXIST IN ISOLATION

Here's what makes the rationalization so easy: values are real. Adventure is real. Generosity is real. Freedom is real. The problem is that every value exists alongside other values that constrain it.

Adventure and security. Freedom and responsibility. Generosity and financial stability. Connection and solitude.

Most people hold all of these simultaneously. And most of the time they pull in different directions.

The tension isn't between your values and your resources. It's between your values and your other values. Money, time, and energy are just the mechanism through which that tension becomes visible.

People value adventure. They also value security, but many never name it. When you don't name the competing value, the louder one wins by default. That's not the values-based life people think it is.

The Value Compass is designed to help you gain insight into your own values and how they guide your thoughts, feelings, and actions. It can be used to explore your personal goals and motivations, as well as to gain a better understanding of others' values and how they may differ from your own.

PRIORITIZING VALUES IS THE WORK

Most people find it easier to identify their values than to rank them. Ranking feels like a betrayal; like saying one thing matters less than another. But that's what choosing requires.

Prioritizing isn't about abandoning the values that don't come first. It's about being honest about which ones win when they conflict.

The questions worth sitting with:

When adventure and security conflict, which one wins, and is that the choice you'd make deliberately?
Which of your values are you funding most generously right now?
Which are being starved, possibly because another value keeps winning by default?
Is the ranking your actual priorities, or just the ones that feel easiest to justify?

The financial plan should reflect the honest answers. Not the values you wish you had. Not the ones easiest to fund. The ones you'd actually choose when they conflict with each other.

It's true that you may value adventure, but it's also true that you value security. When we forget about these hidden values because remembering them would force an uncomfortable conversation with ourselves, then we may be putting our future selves at risk. Forcing these questions into awareness helps us make more intentional choices.

Because values without priorities aren't really values; they're just wishes in disguise.

You get one life; live intentionally.

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