How to do a values audit (and why you probably need one)
A simple spiritual practice for realignment, reflection, and living with integrity
Hi friends,
I wanted to pop on here and share a personal practice that’s helped me live with more integrity. Some of you probably already do it but it’s a lived discipline I think everyone should know about and practice.
It’s inspired by one of my favourite one-liner quotes:
One hour's reflection is preferable to seventy years of pious worship.
—Baha’u’llah
I have come to know that the power of gaining clarity through stillness is one of life’s quiet truths. While we’re all busy and pulled in a million directions, the greatest gift you can give yourself is time. Taking the time to slow down and reflect. Time to distinguish between movement and meaning.
What’s the saying? Not all busy work is good work.
The quality of our attention reveals the quality of our values in practice. What we give time to—what we protect, avoid, or let slide—says more about our alignment than any words we may profess.
Before I go on, two clarifying points:
Taking the time to reflect isn’t about feeling guilty. It’s about coming back into alignment with your true self so you feel more rooted in what really matters.
Reflection should not be complicated. Or burdensome. It should be freeing and simple enough that you can do it regularly.
So, what is this practice?
I simply call it a “values audit” — and after a quick Google search, I realised it’s also a tool used by high-performance psychologist and mindset coaches, like Brené Brown and Jay Shetty. So, nothing original. And like I said, very simple.
The way it works for me is I sit with a pen and my notebook, give myself some silence and uninterrupted space and I ask: what are my top values and am I living in alignment with them?
It requires radical honesty and care not to fall into performance. It’s easy to write what sounds good. Harder to write what’s actually true.
But the outcome is a clearer sense of whether your inner life and outer life are in sync—and where small, intentional adjustments might help bring them back into coherence.
Remember, this doesn’t need to be heavy. Don’t think you need to have grand mission statements or noble-sounding words to frame on a wall. Think of even micro-decisions you’ve made in the last week or month, and consider:
What is truly important to me?
What are my top 5 values at this moment in my life?
Am I living up to these values, in my work, health, relationships, and service?
Where is there alignment?
Where have I drifted and why?
What can I do differently, given what I now know about myself and my reality?
What needs restoring in me?
The idea is that you want to get clear, even if it’s for a few minutes, on whether your inner compass is still pointing truth north or quietly drifting.
You’ll know this if you’re honest about the extent to which your inner values manifest in your outer reality.
A form of rest
More than a tool for clarity, I’ve come to see a values audit as a kind of spiritual rest.
There is a lot of conversations these days about the different types of rest we need, and rightly so — we all need it. We’re exhausted, collectively and individually. But most of the attention tends to focus on:
Physical rest: sleep, stillness, healing.
Mental rest: switching off, stepping away from screens, letting the mind breathe.
Emotional rest: setting boundaries, being honest about what hurts.
Creative, sensory, and social rest—stepping away from stimulation or expectations.
But the kind of rest often left out of the conversation is spiritual rest, and it’s essential to our overall wellbeing.
Spiritual rest is when you allow yourself to go inward. To ask deeper questions. To reconnect with meaning, purpose, and the part of you that isn’t defined by to-do lists, roles, or noise.
While other forms of rest are often framed as needing to escape something, spiritual rest is about returning. Returning to what anchors you, what’s sacred, and what is bigger than you but also within you.
A values audit, in this sense then, is a spiritual practice. Not just a mental exercise. (This is key and I ask you to read that line again).
So I hope this is helpful, friends. Have you done a values audit before? What was that like for you? I’d love to hear how it shows up in your life, and what you’ve learned from the experience.
I’m sharing this with you all because when we’re spiritually depleted or internally fragmented, we make decisions from places that aren’t grounded in truth. The incoherence in our lives, the fragmentations, can lead us to moments, conditions, and places that are not good for us. I’ve seen it in myself when my body aches and my migraines start up again. When tempers shorten, small irritations turn sharp, procrastination increases, focus scatters, or there’s inner despondency. It shows up in different ways. This kind of misalignment can also seep into our relationships, work, and the way we treat ourselves. Left unchecked, it can lead to habits and patterns that do lasting harm.
I care about us. We need realignment. We need rest—not just of the body and mind, but of the spirt. To live fully and joyfully, we need to pause. Rest. Reflect. And move forward with clarity and live a life of integrity. Sometimes a massage will do it, sometimes a sleep-in is needed, but sometimes you need to do the quieter, simpler, but sometimes really hard thing, and go inward.
Audit your values. Tend to your spirit. Let yourself rest in the deeper questions. And then, gently, patiently, begin again.
I hope this resonated with you.
Take care of yourselves and each other,
Kat
p.s. Earlier this week on my socials, I opened up space for 1:1 mentoring for those navigating life transitions, career shifts, or wanting to get unstuck in different aspects of their lives. The response has been overwhelming and I am deeply grateful. If you’re part of this Substack community and feel this might be for you too, just hit reply with your email, and I will send you further details.