When Your Work Misaligns with Your Values: A Hidden Driver of Burnout
When your values are out of alignment, it affects your mental health and wellbeing – whether you can name those values or not.
I’ve seen this firsthand in thousands of hours of career coaching conversations. Time and again, when we take a deeper look at values – clarifying what really matters and how that could inform future choices – people experience lightbulb moments.
Often they realise that a values misalignment was at the heart of why they were feeling so deeply off-track – or why they reached a point where leaving, even without another job to go to, felt like the only option.
Here’s the thing: values shape how you want to show up in the world. They matter deeply to who you are as a person, and when they’re out of sync with your work, you feel it. Even if you can’t fully articulate them, your values are still there – and when they’re out of alignment, it affects you.
So it is far better that you spend time identifying your core values, so that you can tune into them and consider how they might inform your day to day as well as your big life changing decisions – including your work-related ones.
That’s why helping clients to understand how to use their values in a powerful way – in a way that gives them the courage to make choices that are right for them – is some of the most impactful work we do in the coaching programme.
What the data shows
In my Career Wellbeing Quiz, completed by over 400 people, the values section revealed:
Only 39% said they could articulate their values
Even fewer understood how to use those values to inform work choices
Just 1 in 5 felt their work was aligned with their values.
What this means for burnout
We often assume burnout is just about working too hard, but it’s not that simple. Research shows that values misalignment is a significant and often overlooked contributor to burnout.
When there’s a gap between what you care about and what your work requires of you – or a values clash with your workplace culture or manager – it creates internal tension. Over time, that tension erodes your energy and your ability to cope.
You don’t have to be overloaded to burn out, you just have to be consistently out of step with what matters to you.
And that’s not something a holiday can fix.
Take the quiz
If you’re wondering whether something’s out of step for you at work, try the Career Wellbeing Quiz. It’s free, takes just 4–5 minutes, and gives you instant results. Visit: quiz.luminous.co.nz