Do you ever have days when you feel busy but unfulfilled? You rush through your tasks, manage your home, connect with people, but at the end of the day, you feel a nagging sense of being off-track, as if you’re not quite living the life you’re meant to. This feeling is a sign of a disconnect between your daily actions and your core values.

We all experience it: the subtle but persistent hum of dissonance. It’s the feeling that arises when the person we are in our daily lives—in meetings, in traffic, in our own homes—feels disconnected from the person we believe we are at our core. This isn’t a dramatic crisis of identity, but a slow erosion of meaning. A life lived in monochrome when it could be in vibrant colour. The common advice to “find your passion” or “live authentically” often falls flat because it lacks a practical mechanism to apply in your own life.

Your core values are the fundamental principles that guide all your actions and decisions. They are your personal definition of a good and meaningful life. 

This article introduces a powerful, structured journaling method designed to be that mechanism. It’s not about chronicling events, but about becoming a conscious architect of your life. By moving beyond surface-level goal setting, this practice uses journaling as a tool for radical alignment, ensuring your most mundane actions are infused with your deepest sense of purpose.

We will explore unconventional methods for identifying your true values and then provide a weekly journaling framework to close the gap between the values you hold and the life you live.

Part 1: Discovering Your Core Values

Before you can align your actions with your purpose, you must first define your values with precision. Simply picking words from a list—honesty, courage, creativity—is a passive exercise that often results in adopting socially desirable traits rather than your own innate principles. You need to go deeper, to the bedrock of your personal constitution.

Method 1: The “Peak, Trough, and Trigger” Analysis

Instead of a passive list, use this three-part reflective prompt to triangulate your values based on your own life’s data.

Journal Prompts for Value Excavation:

The Peak Experience: 

Describe in vivid detail a time when you felt completely alive, fulfilled, and “in your element.” It could be at work, during a personal project, or in a quiet moment. Don’t just state what you did. What specific feeling did this experience give you? Was it a sense of mastery, connection, profound calm, intellectual expansion, or something else? The core feeling behind the peak experience points directly to a value.

Example: A memory of flawlessly teaching a complex topic to a team doesn’t just point to teaching. The core feeling might be “empowerment” or “clarity”—those are the values.

The Trough Experience: 

Now, detail a memory that left you feeling drained, frustrated, or deeply inauthentic. Look beyond simple sadness or anger. What fundamental principle was being violated in that situation? What felt deeply wrong on a personal level? The opposite of this violated principle is often a core value.

Example: Feeling immense frustration in a job with opaque rules and top-down decisions isn’t just about a bad boss. The violated principle might be ‘autonomy’ or ‘transparency’.

The Trigger Analysis: 

Think about what consistently sparks a disproportionate emotional reaction in you, both positive and negative. What news stories make you genuinely angry? What acts of kindness move you to tears? What underlying theme connects these triggers? These involuntary reactions are your nervous system flagging what matters most.

Example: If you feel a surge of indignation seeing someone take credit for another’s work, the value is not just ‘fairness’, but perhaps a deeper value of ‘acknowledgement’ or ‘justice’.

 

After completing this exercise, distill your findings into 3-5 core value words. But don’t stop there. For each word, write your own definition. What does ‘autonomy’ or ‘connection’ mean to you, specifically, in practice?

Method 2: Writing Exercises to Find Your Values

Set aside 30 minutes and work through these prompts. Be honest and detailed in your responses.

Prompts about Your Highs and Lows:

• Your Best Moments: Describe a time you felt genuinely happy and alive. It doesn’t have to be a big achievement. Maybe it was a quiet morning with a cup of coffee, a great conversation with a friend, or finishing a personal project. What was the core feeling you had? (e.g., calm, connection, creativity, freedom). That feeling points to a value.
• Your Frustrating Moments: Think of a time you felt deeply frustrated, angry, or drained. What principle was being ignored or violated in that situation? If you felt frustrated by gossip, perhaps your value is kindness or integrity. If you felt drained by a chaotic schedule, perhaps you value order or peace.
• A Perfect Day: If you had a completely free day with no obligations, how would you spend it? Who would you be with? What would you do? Your ideal day is a map of what you truly value.

Prompts about Your Influences:

• Childhood Joy: What did you love to do as a child, before you worried about what others thought? What did that activity give you? (e.g., building with lego blocks might point to a value of creativity or problem-solving).
• People You Admire: Think of someone you truly admire (someone you know personally or a public figure). List three qualities you respect most about them. These are likely values you hold yourself.

After journaling, look for recurring themes. Circle the words that come up again and again. Choose the 3-5 that feel most essential to you.

Example: After journaling, Sarah realizes her best memories involve deep conversations with friends, she most admires her grandmother’s ability to listen, and her perfect day involves a long walk with her partner. She identifies connection as a core value. She also notes her most frustrating moments involve feeling rushed and over-scheduled, leading her to identify well-being as another core value.

Part 2: Discovering Actions Compatible With Values

Now that you have your list of values, your journal becomes your tool for alignment. You’ll use it to spot value friction. Value friction is the feeling of stress, guilt, or emptiness that occurs when your actions don’t match your values.  It manifests as procrastination, irritability, anxiety, or a general feeling of being stuck. 

Imagine these scenarios:

• You value health, but you spend an hour scrolling on your phone instead of taking a walk. That guilty, restless feeling is value friction.
• You value connection, but you spend dinner with your family distracted by notifications. That hollow feeling is Value Friction.

This isn’t about judging yourself. It’s about noticing. Your gut feelings are data. This is supported by science; concepts like self-determination theory show we thrive when we feel autonomous and authentic. Your journal is where you’ll collect and analyze this data.

Self-Determination Theory and Somatic Markers

This practice is grounded in established psychological principles. Self-determination theory (SDT), proposed by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, posits that human well-being depends on satisfying three innate psychological needs: autonomy (control over one’s own life), competence (mastering challenges), and relatedness (social connection). Living in alignment with your values is the most effective way to meet these needs.

Furthermore, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio’s Somatic Marker Hypothesis suggests that our emotions are deeply intertwined with decision-making through physical, bodily feelings (gut feelings). Value friction creates negative somatic markers. Your journal helps you become fluent in reading these signals before they escalate into unhappiness or burnout.

The ‘Friction Finder’ Journaling Exercise

Keep these prompts handy in your journal or on your phone. The moment you feel a pang of guilt, a wave of irritation, or a sense of emptiness, take 60 seconds to pause and investigate.

Step 1: Pinpoint the Feeling (The ‘What’)

The first step is to move from a vague sense of unease to a specific observation. Get granular about the feeling itself.

Journal Prompts for Pinpointing the Feeling:

• What is the exact physical sensation you’re feeling right now? Describe it as if you were describing it to a doctor. Where is it? What does it feel like? (e.g., A knot in my stomach, tightness in my chest, restless energy in my legs, a feeling of heaviness)
• What is the primary emotion you’re experiencing? Let’s name it specifically, e.g., don’t just write bad, but guilty, resentful, bored, or anxious).

Example:

Maria is scrolling through social media after a long day, and she starts to feel a familiar, yucky feeling. She journals: “I feel a restless, antsy energy in my hands and chest. The emotion is a mix of boredom and guilt.”

Step 2: Identify the Conflict (The ‘Why’)

Now, connect that feeling to the immediate situation. You are looking for the exact point of impact between your action and your value.

Journal Prompts for Identifying the Conflict:

• What was the precise action you were taking (or thinking about taking) the moment this feeling started?
• Looking at your list of core values, which one is this action pushing against or ignoring?”
• What was the competing desire in that moment? What short-term reward were you getting from the action? (e.g., comfort, distraction, avoiding a difficult conversation, fitting in). This is key information. Friction is almost always a battle between a deep value and a surface-level desire.

Example:

Maria’s core values include creativity and connection. She continues her journal entry: “The action was mindlessly scrolling Instagram. This action is ignoring my value of creativity (I could be sketching or reading) and connection (I’m in the same room as my partner but not interacting with him). The competing desire was to find an easy distraction to numb my brain after work.”

Step 3: Name the Friction (The ‘Label’)

Giving the specific conflict a name makes it less intimidating and easier to recognize the next time it appears. It turns a vague bad feeling into a known opponent.

Journal Prompts for Naming the Friction:

• Let’s create a label for this specific conflict. It’s a ‘Value vs. Desire’ formula. (e.g., ‘My value of health vs. my desire for comfort’). What is the name of the friction you just experienced?
• Is this a recurring type of friction in your life? What are your top 2-3 most common friction points?

Example:

Maria finishes her entry with a clear label: “This is my ‘Creativity vs. Easy Distraction’ friction. It’s one of my most common ones, along with my ‘Health vs. Convenience’ friction when I order takeout instead of cooking.”

By performing this simple, three-step analysis, you are not fixing the problem on the spot. You are gathering crucial data. You are training yourself to become a mindful observer of your own life. This awareness is the raw material you will use in your weekly practice (Part 3) to make small, deliberate changes that reduce friction and steer you back into alignment.

Part 3: The Weekly “Living on Purpose” Journaling Framework

This is a recurring, three-part weekly/daily practice. It should take approximately 15-20 minutes for the weekly sessions and 5 minutes for the daily check-ins.

Step 1: The Sunday Setup (15 Minutes)

Objective: To set a value-based intention for the week ahead.

Journal Prompt:

Looking at your 3-5 core values, which one needs your attention the most this week?

• “This week, I will actively embody the value of [chosen value].”
• “I will translate this value into a concrete, observable action. A specific opportunity to do this will be [describe a specific situation], and my action will be [describe the action]. A challenge might be [describe a possible obstacle]. My plan is to [describe a plan to overcome that obstacle].”

Example: “This week, I will actively embody the value of creativity. I will translate this value into a concrete, observable action. A specific opportunity to do this will be Monday evening, and my action will be drawing a sketch for my painting. A challenge might be tiredness and a lack of motivation to start. My plan is to prepare tools and clean the working area in the morning.”

This is known as an implementation intention, which dramatically increases the likelihood of following through. 

Step 2: The Daily Alignment Check-In (2-5 Minutes)

Objective: To set a daily intention and get feedback on the progress.

Morning Journal Prompts:

• How can you create an opportunity to express your weekly value of [chosen value] today?
• What is a likely challenge to this value, and how can you prepare?

Example: “My value is presence. A challenge will be waiting for my son after school, where I usually scroll on my phone. My plan is to leave my phone in the car.”

Evening Journal Prompts:

• At what point today did you feel the most value friction (that sense of dissonance, resistance, or inauthenticity)? What action were you taking? What core value was being compromised?”
• At what point today did you feel the most value congruence (a sense of flow, rightness, or purpose)? What were you doing, and what value was being honored?”

Step 3: The Friday Review (15 Minutes)

Objective: To review the week’s data, identify patterns, and learn.

Journal Prompts:

• Looking back at your daily check-ins, what was the most common source of value friction this week?
• What pattern or assumption is driving this friction? Is there a belief you hold (e.g., ‘I am not good enough’) that is forcing you to act against a value (e.g., ‘growth’)?”
• What one small, tangible adjustment can you make next week to reduce this specific friction? This is not a total overhaul, but a micro-adjustment.

Example in Practice:

Let’s imagine a software developer named Alex whose core values are creativity, impact, and clarity.

Sunday Synthesis: Alex chooses creativity. His implementation intention is: “During my ‘focus block’ on Wednesday, when I am tempted to just answer emails, I will instead spend the first 30 minutes whiteboarding a new solution to the persistent bug, thus honoring creativity.”

Daily Check-in (Tuesday Evening): Alex notes value friction. “Felt friction during the status update meeting. I was just listing tasks. It felt rote and meaningless. This compromised my value of impact because I wasn’t connecting my work to the user’s experience.”

Friday Forensic: Alex sees a pattern: meetings are his primary source of friction. He realizes he’s been passive in them. His micro-adjustment for next week: “For every meeting, I will prepare one question that connects the agenda to our team’s larger goals, thereby injecting my values of impact and clarity into the discussion.”

Conclusion: Small adjustments, big impact

Living on purpose is not a grand, singular event. It is the cumulative effect of thousands of small, conscious alignments. It is noticing the friction of a misaligned action and having the courage to make a one-degree course correction. This journaling practice is not another task on your to-do list. It is a dedicated space to design a life that is not just successful by external measures, but is resonant and deeply aligned with your core.

This journaling practice provides the structure to notice, to choose, and to slowly but surely steer your daily life toward what truly matters to you. Start this week. You have everything you need: a notebook, a pen, and the courage to be sincere.