In Short

Feeling stuck at work doesn’t always mean you need a new job or more motivation. Often, it’s a sign that your work no longer aligns with what truly matters to you. When your values and your role are out of sync, even a “good” job can feel draining and unfulfilling. Identifying and understanding your values can help you make sense of this discomfort, clarify your next step, and find ways to create more meaning, either within your current role or beyond it.

Have you ever walked into work or stared at your computer screen and thought, “I should be happy doing this”, but the reality is, you’re just not?

You’re paid okay, you’re good at what you do but something just feels off. This disconnect is more common than you may think and is often attributed to laziness, a lack of hardiness, or the need for a vacation to reset your mindset. However, one common but frequently overlooked cause is a misalignment with your values.

Your personal values are the things that genuinely matter to you, such as freedom, autonomy, growth opportunities, job security, fairness, or creativity. They shape how you make decisions, influence your motivation, and affect whether your work gives you energy or drains it. Values are freely chosen and describe the kind of person you want to be – how you want to treat yourself, others and the world. Values guide behaviour because acting in line with them feels meaningful and rewarding in itself, rather than being driven by external rewards (1). You can think of your values as a career compass. They help you assess whether a role, workplace, or way of working fits, and signal when you may be moving off course.

When you work in a role and/or organisation that is aligned to your values, work can feel more meaningful and sustainable. When it doesn’t, even a “good” role can start to feel heavy and overwhelming.

The Hidden Cost of Ignoring Values

When you repeatedly push down what matters to you, work can become emotionally exhausting. 

The strain of acting in ways that don’t sit right internally is called emotional dissonance (2), and over time this can show up as:

• Constant fatigue, even outside work
• Loss of confidence or motivation
• Indecision and fear around career moves
• A sense of wasted potential

This is why “just sticking it out” leaves you just feeling stuck. 

Why Values Matter

Research shows that people are more satisfied and engaged at work when their values align with their role and workplace, known as person–environment fit (3). When the way you work and the work you do reflects what really matters to you, work tends to feel more meaningful and easier. When there is a mismatch between your values and what you’re doing for work, and even how you work, stress and disengagement can creep in. For example, imagine you value honesty and you are asked repeatedly by your boss to stretch the truth to make your employer look good. How might you feel in that situation?

There are moments during our career where a misalignment between our work and our values becomes clearer and more visible, such as the ones below. 

Career Moments Where Misalignment Shows

1.The Promotion That Doesn’t Feel Like a Win

Securing a long-awaited promotion that you have been working towards should be a milestone that brings excitement and satisfaction, typically bringing better pay and higher status. However, if for example that new role trades away the autonomy you value for constant pressure under a rigid work routine, it creates a friction with your core values that can quietly lead to dissatisfaction. You may find yourself successful on paper, but miserable in practice. 

From a young age, we are told that career advancement is the only meaningful signal of success. However, as this example shows, career success isn’t just about the height of the climb; it’s about whether you’re still headed in the right direction (4). By using your values as a compass, you can gain the clarity needed to navigate toward work that feels meaningful and the insight to recognise when a step up the ladder might actually be a step backward.

2. The Growing Urge to Change Careers

Sometimes dissatisfaction isn’t about your skills or your industry, it’s about how your priorities and values have changed. Major life events, such as becoming a parent, experiencing burnout, facing chronic illness, or navigating other significant changes, can shift what feels truly important and meaningful to you.

Many people change careers not because they have failed, but because their work no longer reflects who they are or where they want to focus their energy (5). That nagging thought at the end of the weekend, “Is this really what I want to do?”, is often a signal that your values are asking for attention and guiding you toward work that better aligns with who you’ve become.

Finding More Meaning Without Quitting Your Job

Not everyone needs a full career pivot. Sometimes it is less about what you do and more about how you do it.

This is where job crafting comes in. Job crafting means intentionally reshaping aspects of your role, such as how you approach tasks, who you work with, and what opportunities you take on, to better reflect your values, interests, and strengths. Even small changes can make work feel more meaningful and motivating (6). For example, someone who values contribution might seek mentoring opportunities, while someone who values creativity might take on more problem-solving or project-based work. Someone with strong analytical skills could volunteer to run data-driven projects, and someone who enjoys collaboration might explore cross-team initiatives.

These changes do not always require a resignation letter, just clarity about what matters to you and the confidence to speak up. While every role and organisation has limits, there are often ways to adjust how you do existing tasks or get involved in new ones. Even if a perfect solution is not possible, it is worth having the conversation rather than assuming opportunities do not exist. 

Feeling Stuck? How Career Coaching Helps

Careers coaching can help you identify and understand your values, and guide you in putting them into action in ways that are meaningful to you. By creating your own values-based compass as a guide, you can move effectively from dissatisfaction, low motivation and disengagement to values-aligned work that creates vitality, purpose and meaning. 

At Coachling, we work with people who feel capable but stuck. People who sense they want more alignment, more meaning, or more confidence in their next step but don’t want to make the wrong move.

If reading this made you think, ‘That’s exactly how I feel,’ consider booking a session. Career coaching can help you turn that nagging sense of misalignment into clear next steps.

Bibliography

1. Wilson KG. Mindfulness for two: An acceptance and commitment therapy approach to mindfulness in psychotherapy. New Harbinger Publications; 2009 Jul 1.
2. Edwards JR, Cable DM. The value of value congruence. Journal of applied psychology. 2009 May;94(3):654.
3. Keane A, Kwon K, Kim J. An integrative literature review of person–environment fit and employee engagement. Journal of Management & Organization. 2024 Nov;30(6):2149-78.
4. Heslin PA. Conceptualizing and evaluating career success. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior. 2005 Mar;26(2):113-36.
5. Ibarra H. Working identity : unconventional strategies for reinventing your career. Boston: Harvard Business School Press; 2004.
6. Junça-Silva A, Silva S, Caetano A. Job crafting, meaningful work and performance: a moderated mediation approach of presenteeism. SN Business & Economics. 2022 Mar 17;2(4):31.