The Compass in the Storm: Finding Direction When Focus Fails
How to stay oriented when life pulls you off-centre
Prefer to listen? Here’s the audio version by Jon:
The real problem isn’t just life’s noise. It’s losing touch with what actually deserves your attention.
You’re doom scrolling your phone at 10 PM. Again.
You’ve been busy all day, yet if someone asked what you actually achieved, you’d probably struggle to name three meaningful things you’ve done. Your brain feels like spaghetti, and a quiet nagging voice utters:
Is this really what I want to be doing?
Your focus isn’t failing because you lack discipline. It’s failing because you’re navigating without a clear sense of direction. Algorithms are engineered to monetise your attention; relying on willpower is akin to bringing a butter knife to a sword fight.
The fix isn’t another productivity hack.
It’s far more fundamental: it’s knowing what you truly value.
Why most people get values wrong
You might dismiss values like ‘freedom’ and ‘justice’ as fluffy corporate slogans or self-help platitudes. But personal values are more fundamental: they determine what matters to you and how you are when no one’s watching.
They’re the standards you use to make choices, the reasons behind your strongest convictions, and the boundaries you won’t cross.
Unlike goals or preferences, which shift with circumstances, your core values remain steady. They’re what you protect when you feel compromised, and what you lean on when a decision feels impossible.
The distinction between values, morals and needs is often a little fuzzy; for clarity, I’m defining them as:
Values are personal, enduring beliefs. They reflect what matters to you, not the world.
Morals are society’s shared rules; commonly shaped by culture or religion. You can internalise them, but they usually originate outside of you.
Needs are universal: connection, autonomy, rest. We all share them; they’re human essentials.
Most of your internal conflict comes from mixing these up.
You feel guilty for disappointing your parents (morals). You’re drained from chasing a promotion you don’t care about (misaligned values). You feel hollow because you haven’t seen your friends in weeks (unmet needs).
When your brain fights itself
Your brain is wired to reward integrity between what you believe and what you do. When your goals reflect your values, you feel clear and energised.
But when you pursue what impresses others, rather than what matters to you, something feels uneasy.
And you’re not alone: according to recent research from the Human Clarity Institute (2025)1 , only 14% of people say their daily tasks are strongly aligned with their values.
This means 86% of people spend their energy on things that don’t deeply reflect what matters to them.
When you don’t feel centred enough internally, your attention defaults to what’s urgent, familiar, or socially rewarding. You’re reacting on autopilot, not choosing how to respond.
No wonder burnout is everywhere.
You stay relentlessly busy, but nothing feels truly yours.
You can paddle frantically in any direction, but if it’s not heading toward shore, you’re just going in circles.
“Without a purpose, life is motion without meaning, activity without direction, and events without reason.”
Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life
The big five: what actually drives you
A core part of coaching is helping clients identify their top personal values. Because when you know your values, your priorities get clear, goals get easier, and life flows more.
The problem? It takes time to pin down your values. Classic approaches are a little clunky, lacking a simple clear overarching framework. Which is why, when I found out about recent research from 20252 that identified core human value orientations, a light bulb went off, and I realised this is a great framework to help people quickly get clarity on their top-level values.
The five key value orientations are:
Individual Mastery: developing skills for their own sake
Social Rank: seeking recognition and achievement
Interpersonal Relatedness : valuing relationships and support
Cultural Conventionality: prioritising stability, order and tradition
Universal Justice: supporting fairness and collective wellbeing
Each represents a different approach to meaning.
They are all equally valid; none is superior. And most people express a combination of these, with one or two taking the lead.
A functioning society depends on all five: the inventors, the caregivers, the reformers, the stabilisers, and the achievers.
The real tension isn’t between right and wrong values, but between your true values and the ones you’ve absorbed from others.
Identify your value orientations
To help you find your value orientations try this when you have 10 minutes. Open your calendar. Scan the entries from the past 2-3 weeks.
Make a note of which ones made you feel energised and uplifted.
Now review what you found and group them under one or more of the five core human value orientations:
Individual Mastery
Social Rank
Interpersonal Relatedness
Cultural Conventionality
Universal Justice
Here are examples for each of the 5 orientations:
Deep work on a hard problem, learning a new skill → Individual Mastery
Leading a high-pressure project, winning recognition for your work → Social Rank
Mentoring a colleague, supporting a friend through crisis → Interpersonal Relatedness
Organising systems, creating clear guidelines, maintaining tradition → Cultural Conventionality
Championing policy change, standing up for fairness → Universal Justice
After identifying your value orientations, you can start to use them as a filter for where to focus your attention.
Anchor your values with boundaries
Values without boundaries are just good intentions. Without boundaries, you’re skimming the surface of everything, jumping between tasks, never diving in far enough to find meaning.
What gives them agency is structure, a clear line that protects what matters from what’s merely urgent.
This might look like no work email after 7 PM if you value interpersonal connection or blocking mornings for creative work if you value individual mastery.
Create a Not-To-Do list
To support your boundaries create a Not-To-Do list, a list of what actively pulls you away from your values.
Such as:
‘I will not check social media before breakfast.’
‘I will not accept meetings that could be emails.’
‘I will not respond to work messages after 7 PM.’
⠀Every no to noise is a yes to what matters.
One action for today
There is a lot more to discover with identifying your core values but this is a good starting point. I encourage you to take 10 minutes for yourself today, look at your calendar and identify your value orientations as explained in the exercise.
This one simple action will start to give you clarity on what you value.
Want to go deeper? An email course on finding your specific values beyond the big five orientations is coming soon. Sign up to the Self Unlocked to be notified when it launches.
Footnotes
Wilkowski, B. M., DiMariano, E., & Peck, J. (2025). Understanding the full landscape of values and superordinate goal content: An empirical integration of past models in the American cultural context. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000578