Episode 19: Your Core Values Don't Come From a Poster
Why So Many Women Confuse “What Sounds Good” with What’s Actually True
Burnout, Boundaries, and the Values You Didn't Choose (But Are Still Living By)
Summary
This solo episode of Hard at Work is not about inspirational poster values. It's about the real ones—the ones that shape your decisions, your burnout, your boundaries, and your sense of self.
Ellen Whitlock Baker digs into why so many of us (especially women) are unclear on what actually matters to us—and how we often end up living by values handed to us by workplaces, families, and old identities. She shares a powerful, simple framework for getting honest about your core values, inspired by Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead values exercise, and explains how clarifying your true values can be the difference between feeling stuck and finally finding clarity.
This episode is for anyone spinning on a big life or career decision—or just feeling disconnected from themselves. You’ll learn how to spot the values that are actually guiding your behavior, and how to start naming what really matters.
Takeaways
Your real values aren’t what looks good on paper. They’re what makes you feel aligned, grounded, and proud—especially when no one else is watching.
Core values are burnout prevention. When you know what matters, you stop overcommitting and start making decisions from clarity.
You might be living by someone else’s rules. Workplace culture, family expectations, and old habits often drown out what’s actually true for you.
Figuring it out takes reflection. The best place to start is remembering moments when you felt deeply proud—and asking why.
Don’t do it alone if you don’t have to. Working through this with a coach, therapist, or friend can help you name what you might not see clearly on your own.
Notable Quotes
“When your values aren’t clear, every decision feels like a crisis.”
“Your values are not your personality, your strengths, or your LinkedIn endorsements.”
“We often list what sounds good before we get to what’s actually true.”
“Knowing your core values helps you move through the world differently—less second-guessing, more clarity.”
“Your true values aren’t printed on an office poster. They’re in your gut, your bones, your soul.”
Chapters
00:00 – Intro & Why Values Matter
02:00 – The Cost of Carrying Someone Else’s Values
04:15 – The Problem with Inspirational Posters
06:00 – Real vs. Aspirational Values
08:00 – How to Discover What Drives You
11:00 – Breadcrumbs from Your Own Life
13:00 – Coaching, Reflection & Finding Clarity
15:00 – Wrap-Up & Why Values Change Everything
Keywords: core values, burnout prevention, women at work, workplace culture, decision-making, self-awareness, personal development, leadership coaching, emotional clarity, values exercise, Brene Brown values, career coaching, work-life clarity, intentional leadership, authenticity at work
Transcript
Ellen Whitlock Baker (00:01.614)
Okay, this is episode 19 of Hard at Work Solo.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (00:08.43)
Hey everyone and welcome back to Hard at Work. I'm your host Ellen Whitlock-Baker and today we're going to get into something that sounds simple but honestly isn't. We're going to talk about core values and not the generic inspirational poster kind, not the company culture buzzword kind, your values, what actually matters most to you. And before you roll your eyes and think, okay Tony Robbins, hear me out.
because knowing your core values isn't just a nice thing to have. It's a burnout prevention tool. It's a decision-making filter. It's how you stop doing things out of guilt or fear and start doing them with clarity. And women in the workplace in particular have a really hard time figuring out what our values are because we're pretty busy making sure everybody else is okay first. And if you haven't intentionally done this work,
there's a good chance that you aren't 100 % sure of your values, even if you think you are. So if you're feeling stuck, if you're spitting on what's next, if you're making a big life or career decision, your values are your compass. So let's dig in. Many years ago, my coach led me through Brene Brown's Dare to Lead values exercise. It was way harder than I expected, and it was also way more impactful than I ever thought it would be.
If you had asked me, I would have told you, sure, I value kindness and stuff. But true core values are very different than the things you think are important to living a good life. As Brene Brown says in Dare to Lead, her book, a value is a way of bel-
A value is a way of being or believing that we hold most important. So if I asked you to name your two true core values right now, could you do it using that definition? If not, this is a great place to spend a little time because most of us haven't taken the time or we haven't felt like we had permission to name what actually matters around us, to name what actually matters to us.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (02:22.486)
or we're carrying around values someone else gave us, the values of our workplace, our family, our culture, a past version of ourselves. And here's why that's a problem. When your values aren't clear, every decision can feel like a crisis. And you can act in ways that feel really confusing when you don't realize that you're acting in response to your values. When your values are clear, even the hard choices feel a little less scary. You know what's guiding you.
You have a handle on why something might have bothered you or why you feel so passionate about something. You know you a lot better.
Now, to be clear, your values are not the same as your personality or your strengths or your resume buzzwords. So there's this poster at my physical therapist's office that is a photo of a guy belaying up a craggy mountain with his bike attached to him, like his bike literally hanging down from his backpack. And it says, So like.
I look at this every time I'm there doing my lunges and squats and basically being made to cry by my PT. And I'm like, what is this guy doing with this bike? Is he planning to climb up and bike down? I mean, I get it, I guess, but that's a lot of effort to go through for a bike ride. And it looks very dangerous and very scary, but I guess, hey, if you're a rock climbing biker, more power to you. But the thing about this poster is it feels so performative to me. It's not inspirational.
I don't do my squats with more determination because I see it. Mostly I just wonder why this guy chose to do this stupid thing. So your values are not this. They're not a power word on a photo of someone doing some incredible feat. They're not team player or hard worker or passion for excellence. They're not anything someone else put in a room to inspire you, but we can think they are. I've coached enough people to know
Ellen Whitlock Baker (04:24.162)
that we often list what sounds good before we get to what's actually true. We list what's expected of us. Aspirational in the context of your workplace, which doesn't necessarily mean aspirational to you. Your real values are the things that, when honored, make you feel proud and grounded and powerful, and when violated, make you feel resentful or angry or just really upset. Just like that stupid poster makes me feel irrationally upset.
So if this topic has you curious, Brene Brown shares a great exercise about values in her book, Dare to Lead, the one I was talking about before. She also has a free online hub for Dare to Lead where you can access this exercise and all of the prompts. I'll put a link in the show notes. Totally free, lots of cool resources there. So Brene Brown lists dozens of values. There's a sheet with
a hundred or so values just in lists. Everything from compassion to honesty to creativity to stability. And the big challenge is you have to narrow it down to your two core values, just two, which sounds simple, but it's kind of brutal because what it does is force you to get really honest about what actually drives you. You realize like, I keep saying I value balance, but I'm
constantly choosing achievement, or I say I value security, but I've been craving freedom for years. I use a version of this exercise with many of my clients and not because we're trying to fix them. It's because most of us need help separating what we've been told to value from what's actually ours. And we can very easily lose sight of our values when we've been concentrating on other people instead of ourselves. And honestly, doing this exercise with someone else
someone who can ask real questions and reflect what they hear, that's when the magic happens. So if you don't have a coach or a mentor or even a therapist, maybe find a friend who's in a similar place to you and do the exercise together. It can absolutely be done alone, but it's really helpful to have a buddy to work through it with. So without going through the whole exercise here, because it really needs some one-on-one time, here's something to try as you start to figure out your core values.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (06:49.016)
Think of a moment when you felt really proud of yourself, like deep in your bones proud. Not because you got a gold star or someone else praised you, but because you knew it was right, it was aligned, it was you. What was happening in that moment? What were you standing for? That's a breadcrumb. That's a clue to your core values. So try this with a couple of different memories and you'll start to notice a pattern. And that's really where we begin.
So if this is something that you want to explore more deeply, if you're in that, I know I need something different, but I don't know what season, or I feel like I've lost my purpose, I love doing this work with people. Whether it's in one-on-one coaching or in a group workshop, helping people name their core values is one of my favorite parts of the process, partially because it was so transformative for me. Because once you know what matters most, you stop chasing every shiny opportunity.
you stop saying yes out of guilt, and you stop second guessing yourself every five minutes, you get to move differently through the world. So to wrap us up, discerning your core values is one of the most powerful exercises you can do. Knowing what matters to you helps you ground your actions and whatever move you make next in truth, not fear. Because your true core values aren't presented to you on a wall in the company break room,
They aren't illustrated by some cheesy photo of a guy inexplicably yeeting his bike up a cliff. They're in your soul. And with work, you'll know them when you find them. So that's it for today's episode. And thank you so much for being here. Keep those comments, ratings, and shares going. And I really, really truly appreciate you for listening. Reach out anytime to share how you're feeling about the podcast or if you want me to cover a specific topic at ellen at ewbcoaching.com.
Thank you so much for being here. I'll talk to you soon.
