Pod Insights Change Wired The Highway to Happiness: the values-bridge exercise and what to do every day to increase your happiness. About this episode That quiet, persistent thought, “My life is pretty good, but something is missing,” can be one of the most useful signals you get. I’m unpacking why that feeling so often comes from a values gap: what you truly care about versus what your days repeatedly look like. When our priorities shift over the years, we can keep living by an old internal scorecard without realizing it, then wonder why motivation drops and dissatisfaction creeps in. I share a personal story about growing up in Russia c...
Transcript 0:09 Speaker 00 Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Shorina, I'm your host, I'm your partner in change in personal and collective evolution and transformation and your executive health and high performance coach 360 and just someone who is obsessed with learning how to unlock more of our potential, to grow into a better version of ourselves daily and to creating more fulfilling life experience overall and positive impact in the world. And speaking of impact, guys, I realized not so long ago, actually, that not everyone is driven by the thing of changing the world.
0:55 Speaker 00 I'm doing quite a few assessments on values and on just learning more about myself as I am today, not as I was some time ago, when I was just at the beginning of my coaching career or even five years ago, like we change, right? And things that are important to us change to some degree. Some things come to the front of our life, of our priorities, and some things go a little bit into the shadow. And so it's really a good thing to explore those changes so you get to enjoy your life
1:37 Speaker 00 more and so you are more fulfilled with how your days go. And speaking about fulfillment and impact, a little bit of story. So today is the day that my motherland, Russia, celebrates two holidays on the same day. So one is, it is the day of Cosmos or Cosmonautics, but what we celebrate is the fact that Yuri Gagarin is the first guy who to fly into space. On this day, he flew into space in 1961. So that's one of the holidays that my motherland celebrates today. The other one is Orthodox Easter.
2:21 Speaker 00 And when I'm thinking about those two things, if I were to choose one holiday and I decided to celebrate it, that would definitely be Space Day. I'm, I can relate a lot more to your Gagarin, to this pursuit of mission, of some mission your entire life. I can relate to that a lot more than to a regular churchgoer on Sunday. And that tells me something about myself.
2:54 Speaker 00 A story. Once upon a time, I decided to go to the US because it was very important to me to attend this moon landing anniversary gala on my birthday. Like, I felt like I needed to connect to my value of impact. So much that I felt like I needed to go there, and I did. I actually spoke to the man who stepped on the moon. Like, the second, he was the second man, Buzz Aldrin, who stepped on actual moon, the first second man on the moon after Neil Armstrong. Who would do that?
3:36 Speaker 00 You know, people like myself, who for whichever reason love space and for whom being on a mission is a more important value above almost anything else. And I do wake up every day asking myself, sometimes consciously, sometimes not, this question like, how am I impacting the world? Over the course of, again, the past couple of weeks, I did some value work. And yesterday I took this assessment, which was proposed in the book that I just finished, Becoming You. The assessment is Values Bridge Assessment. And it's all about learning about, in your ideal life, what values would be in, would be front and center?
4:17 Speaker 00 What values would dominate, would define your choices, your priorities? How you structure your days, your lives, like, would you bring more or less of? Right, so the, the part of the assessment was about that, figuring out what really drives you and how your ideal life would be designed, or what your ideal life would revolve around. And the second part of the assessment is figuring out where you are today, how your current life is aligned or misaligned, in conflict or in harmony.
4:49 Speaker 00 With those values that are important to you, right? So you figure out your core values, values that are not that important to you, values that are somewhat moderate, and then how much alignment or harmony or conflict there is in between two. And it's a great assessment. I'm not affiliated in any way, and the full version of assessment costs you thirty dollars, which I decided to spend, and it gives you like full breakdown. And I found it to be very useful because it showed me, first of all, like what really drives me in life, just reaffirm certain things that I kind of knew, but it put it into nice words, like what it means and how I can bring more of that into my life.
5:32 Speaker 00 And then it helped me to dial in, like, where is the biggest gap? And why am I feeling this dissatisfaction with, you know, the way my life is right now? A lot of us can relate to this feeling. It's like having, I have a pretty good life, but something is missing. And what I'm realizing it more and more as I'm going through different assessment and literature and different books that are coming now, right now, seems that meaning can happen. This is, it's kind of like a big thing in our conscious awareness right now. As I'm going through these books, I'm realizing that that, this dissatisfaction is this gap between your core values, very often not well defined.
6:16 Speaker 00 And, you know, it's like you feel something missing, but you don't really understand. So that gap is your values, the gap between your values that are important to you and the way you live your life. And so this assessment helped me to dial in this gap, like, where is the biggest gap? And the biggest gap, I think it was like one hundred percent gap. And they say like more than fifty and you're kind of in a danger zone. I'm like, yeah, no wonder I feel this like nagging dissatisfaction. So the biggest The biggest gap was on on my biggest value, impact. Like, I don't feel like I'm changing the world or impacting the world in the way I want. And then I ask myself, like any coach who is action and results oriented.
7:01 Speaker 00 I ask myself first, like, what's the definition for me like of impact? What does it mean for me to have impact? I and I wrote this down. Working with more people, impacting their lives in a positive way, creating this systemic change. That what impact is for me. Not the kind of like Mother Teresa kind of impact. When you, let's say, volunteer and you help people one on one, meaning you perhaps donate something or help. I am a system thinker. For me, impact means creating a systemic difference, rebuilding, changing, rearranging, redesigning.
7:45 Speaker 00 Systems that then help a lot more people to have much better lives. So that is what what impact is for me. And doing doing doing this value work, I also realized that certain things are important to me, which doesn't make, doesn't
8:07 Speaker 00 then create this like notion that it doesn't make sense for me to go and volunteer in some places in Africa, right? Working maybe on some causes, something related to maybe poverty or hunger or water, like all of these issues. Because one of my values is also, I like a little bit more affluence. I like a little bit more comfort. I like a little bit more beauty and arrangement in my world. And I could say, well, Angela, you know, that's not the most important thing. But the value work, actually, why I love, what I love about that is it's not there to tell you what is right and what is wrong to do in life.
8:49 Speaker 00 It's to tell you that certain things you value more, you find. And more important and bridging again the gap between what you value and what you you dedicate your life or what are you prioritize in your life right now. What where I feel like a lot of those happiness and meaning books that are coming out right now, where they missed the mark is this idea that happiness and fulfillment and meaning and purpose is kind of the same for all people, like, for example, a social life, right? Or belonging to communities, to tribes.
9:30 Speaker 00 And a lot of people like myself actually do not relate to that very much because we feel that expressing our voice, that being a nonconformist, that actually going against the grain is more fulfilling than being a part of some community and the tribe. And there is also a lot of reason why why nature or the world would have people like myself to spot the things that are actually not working in the society, in the tribe. And so we are, people like myself, are a little bit outsiders, going forward,
10:13 Speaker 00 going in different direction to explore, but also seeing things from outside. So we can spot the signs of, you know, things not working or a better way of doing things. And so for me, happiness and meaning and purpose would never be about being a part of some community. And then this value work also allowed me to explore those conflicts. Like, I want to make a difference, but then at the same time, I don't want to belong to a lot of groups and tribes to make that difference, or another conflict, that I want to make a difference. I want to make an impact, but I'm not driven by fame and fortune.
10:53 Speaker 00 I don't want to be in a spotlight, not a lot, like when it's necessary, yeah, sure, I go and I speak. But the reason why, for example, I never wanted to become a public speaker. Professionally or do it as my primary activity because I don't enjoy spotlight to that degree. I remember I was talking to this local speaker who achieved a lot, John Sunny. And on our call, he asked me, so when I ask him for advice, he asked me, so do you want to be famous? And I'm like, no, actually, I don't. That's not why I want to speak more. I want to understand how to be a better public speaker, not because I want to be famous,
11:34 Speaker 00 but because I want to deliver the message that I'm passionate about better, not to speak full time like he is doing right now, but to be more effective when I do choose to speak. And I realized at that point, ah, there is something different between what drives him and what and what drives me, right? So this kind of value work is very helpful because again, then it helps you to start looking into bridging this gap like and putting more final fine details on this dissatisfaction. If you are feeling this like something is
12:16 Speaker 00 missing or you felt that like that is the way to figure out where exactly this gap is, what's that missing part is, and how to start bringing more actions in into your life, into your day. So you get to close this gap. I remember, guys, when I was growing up and I was choosing what university to go to and I didn't get to go there because there was like, I think I just swinged too big and I decided to apply for one of the best universities in my country. And but why I'm sharing with you this is because my initial, yeah, like desire when I was growing up is to go into world politics. And I saw
13:01 Speaker 00 myself more of this like mediator negotiator in world, the most biggest, most important negotiations. Some were like bridging two sides, two sides of the conflict or two different opinions. Right? That's where I saw myself being. I truly cared about the state of the world and bridging the.
13:25 Speaker 00 Conflicts from a bigger perspective. So we could create a better, bigger picture for all of us to live in. And that is still, I realize, true today. And I'm feeling this dissatisfaction again because I'm not, I'm not, I'm not doing what I believe is the impact that I want to create. All of that to say, I'm going to share with you a couple of interesting things from this assessment to give you an idea like where this dissatisfaction might be hiding for you. And what you can do to then actually explore certain things like your values to bridge that gap. So you have more fulfillment and less dissatisfaction. So I'm going to share with you a couple of things.
14:07 Speaker 00 And then I also going to share with you a reflection exercise that I do every week that helps you to understand what values matter to you, what you care about, what success mean look like for you, what failure look like for you. And how again, you can bring more things into your day to day life. So you get to feel more fulfillment, more happiness, more meaning, not defined by some book, but that stems from, that comes from the very like core, very, very essence of you. So a couple of interesting things that came up on this assessment as well.
14:46 Speaker 00 Like I already shared with you this conflict between impact and what's in the assessment called luminance, but being famous or being in the spotlight, right? There is another conflict, for example, between being very work centric. Like I, I dedicate most of my, you know, daily life, most of my time to working on things. And I find it very pleasurable and enjoyable. But another conflict is with the, this idea of expressing my voice, expressing my personality. Because work centrism often it's dedication to your career, which I actually don't care about being in an organization or climbing this corporate ladder.
15:31 Speaker 00 But I do have this need to express my voice. And so one of the contexts is, okay, how can you? Create this sense of sort of climbing some ladder, but also not in the organization because it is very important for you to express your voice in a very unique way, which in most organizations actually is not a so much.
15:58 Speaker 00 It's it's not the value that you could bring to the organization to to the collective, because being a part of the organization is being a part of the group and following more rules. And then expressing your voice to create coherence, right? Like one of the conflicts, why probably it's not a great, great idea for me to be in a big organization, which I kind of already knew. And that's why I'm not a big part of organization, although I work in the organization. But they actually bring me as this voice of non-conformist. So I could tell them something different. That's what why many leaders literally bring me into the organization to tell people something different.
16:43 Speaker 00 But I also wanted to share with you a couple of interesting harmonies that explains a lot. For example, again, I'm big on impact, but I'm quite low on enjoyment and this like wellness and just having fun. And that actually is in really good harmony, because impact might require you to do a lot of work and sacrifice a lot of this fun and joy for working on the bigger things that take time. And often, again, I'm not that joyful, but more like challenging. And maybe that is why it is also super easy for me to be on any sort of exercise or diet program or anything. I'm more of a mission person. That brings me joy.
17:28 Speaker 00 The hard work on a mission brings me joy, not so much enjoying the journey. And again, it's not right or wrong. Actually, it is very right for me that what brings my dissatisfaction that last, right? So not being high on fun and enjoyment actually plays in very nicely with me having the core value of impact.
17:50 Speaker 00 Another really good one is having core value achievement and low value of belovedness, which means having or putting a lot of value on personal romantic relationships. Most of the time I'm single and sometimes when I say that people like very often people would think like, oh, like poor you, you need to find someone. I'm like, no, actually I enjoy my life where I connect with people when I want, for as long as I want, and I keep living my life as I want.
18:29 Speaker 00 And that achievement and agency and freedom and impact and it's a lot more valuable to me than being in a long-term relationship, right? So, and that reflects in my values and how I live my life and that's what I enjoy, right? So that is the perfect harmony, actually. And looking at that, it helps me to be non-apologetic about things that bring me happiness. Even the world says that I should be happy about something else. Like, I am happier when I work than when I am out there having some idea of someone else's fun,
19:12 Speaker 00 someone else's idea of fun, right? And very often, like assessments like this again, bring front and center this idea that my idea of happiness, like true happiness, what satisfies me to the very core, is probably not your idea. And you know what? That's totally all right. I think part, big part of what we feel as a society with this dissatisfaction is yes, we don't spend enough time on things that bring us health, that's for sure. But then the second thing is we also spread this idea that happiness or achievement or success is one thing,
19:53 Speaker 00 but actually it's many different things to many different people. And that's where no book on happiness or fulfillment actually can bridge this gap, but you actually have to do the work to figure that out. So that is, you know, about core values, the link to the values breach assessment, which talk to this harmonies and conflicts and that helps you to clarify what your values are and where the gap is. So then you can start moving towards fulfillment and happiness in a way that truly satisfies you, that is truly fulfilling to you. So the link is in the show notes. Again, I'm not affiliated in any way, but I really loved it. And the
20:37 Speaker 00 second thing that as I promised, which the link is also going to be in the show notes, it's a structured weekly reflection template that I'm going to walk you through questions right now. So you don't need to download the worksheet. You can just put it on when you're ready to do the reflection. Today is Sunday. If you're listening to this today, it's an ideal day to reflect, to prepare, to design the next week more according to, you know, to grow what's important and shrink what's not. And keep also, it will help you to close that gap between what you value, what you find fulfilling in love, in life,
21:18 Speaker 00 and what you end up living. So assess, well, this reflection also does the same work and it helps you to come back to what's important to you and aligning your life with that more often versus doing this values breach assessment once and then kind of forgetting about that. Right? So structured weekly reflection. All you need is, I don't know, 20 minutes on the clock and then you're going to go through these questions that I'm going to walk you through. Again, the template, which is on my Google Drive, is linked in the show notes as well. So check it out. But yeah, whenever you're ready, sit down, have a pen and paper
22:00 Speaker 00 and yeah, once you hear the questions, stop the recording and then write about what I prompted you to think about. And then again, at the end, I'll ask you to reflect on what you want to focus on next week so that you create more fulfillment and meaning and happiness with what's on your schedule. Right? So, okay, reflection, question or part number one, review and celebrate wins and gratitude. So three questions here.
22:32 Speaker 00 What am I most proud of this week? Again, when you ask yourself this question, and when you reflect on something you're proud of, it tells you something about you. Like, what makes you proud is different from makes me proud. What makes you proud this week is different from makes you proud, I don't know, made you proud last week or a year ago, right? So what am I most proud of this week? It doesn't have to be like a whole composition. Just a couple of bullet points is enough. The next one. What were the biggest wins or milestones achieved this week for you? Again, not from some societal standard,
23:15 Speaker 00 but what felt like the biggest win and milestone for you? What deserve a thank you for? Who deserves a thank you for supporting me this week? So that is part number one, review and celebrate. Part number two, analyze and reflect. Challenges and learnings. We have four questions here. What challenges did I face and how did I handle them? Right, what challenges did I face and how did I handle them? What did I learn from my successes and setbacks? What did you learn? Very often, we have so many lessons each and single week, very often, every single day, and we just miss them. What 20% of actions drove 80% of my results?
23:59 Speaker 00 Again, the results that mattered to you. What are your 20% that drove 80% of results? What was my biggest time sink or distraction? What took you out of what mattered most to you? Right, what was the biggest time sink or distraction?
24:18 Speaker 00 Part number three. And we just have four parts here. Evaluate well-being and alignment. Did I make time for self-care, joy, and health? And again, guys, it's all about your standards. My standard for health and care and joy is not your standard. So, but what did you? But did you put some time for your self-care, joy, and health? Second one, did I let other people dictate my time?
24:48 Speaker 00 Being in a state of autonomy or making your choices, taking control or designing your own time is a huge part of what makes you happy. So the question, did I let other people dictate my time? Third one, am I closer to my long term goals than last week? Am I closer to my long term goals than last week? And it doesn't mean that you achieved some huge milestone or jump towards your long term goals every week. What it means is, you know, was there a moment? Did you put your time and attention to what matters to you long term? Did you make that one step, one step or maybe several steps forward?
25:32 Speaker 00 Part number four, prepare for next week, forward looking. What is my top priority for the week ahead? Right, like what will, what will help you to preach those things that you value and that you get to live? Like what's your top priority? Where will you focus? Now, what will you get? What will you achieve? What is your top priority? What's your top focus for the week ahead? What is one thing I can do to make next week less stressful? For me, one, a couple of things. I do my grocery shopping so that I don't have to worry about, you know, my essentials. I make sure that everything in my apartment runs well. So I don't have to just think about my habitat
26:15 Speaker 00 and all the essentials that makes my life possible. For example, I asked for a heater from the person I rent my apartment from. So I don't get cold as it gets cold in South Africa. Or I also went to a police station, which, which is open twenty four seven here to get my proof of address signed and proofed. So then I could do all the things that I need to do during the week without rush and queues. So the question is, what is one thing I can do to make next week less stressful? And the last, but not least, I really love this question, actually. What should I stop, start or continue doing?
26:57 Speaker 00 And on, in my reflection that I usually do on Saturdays.
27:03 Speaker 00 The second week, the stop part was about stop beating yourself up for the things you don't have. And what I mean by that is sometimes when I look at social media and other people, I start comparing myself like, why am I not there? Why am I sort of like worse or not that smart? But actually, very often, well, all the time, you start from completely different places and you have completely different direction with people you compare yourself to. So stop beating yourself up for the things that are not part of your reality, for the, I don't know, education that you didn't get because you didn't grow up, I don't know,
27:46 Speaker 00 in a certain place with certain opportunities, start beating you up for the money that you don't have or the relationships and network that you don't have. All of that to say, start where you are with what you have. You have more than enough to keep moving towards what's important to you. Right? So what should I stop, start and continue doing? And that's it for today, guys. So that is your reflection structured weekly reflection template, which will help you to understand better what's important to you, what's not, and will get you closer to living
28:26 Speaker 00 your values even without specifying your values in definitions and words. But I also do recommend taking assessments like the breach, the values breach, so you get to perhaps define that gap between the life that you want to live and the one that you're living now more precisely and in more actionable terms, so then you can take actions on that knowledge, so you get to live fulfilling and happy life sooner than later.
29:01 Speaker 00 Thank you guys for tuning in. Don't forget to share this podcast episode, perhaps bring it to your book club or to your discussion session with your fellow entrepreneurs or whoever is in your community, discuss, do the assessment, keep each other accountable on bridging your values with the life that you live every day. And especially if you know the person who is not satisfied with their life and their nature, why give them this podcast, maybe keep them accountable and doing the reflection, maybe give them a gift of this
29:41 Speaker 00 values breach assessment. So then they can start moving closer towards that meaningful satisfaction that a lot of us are thinking about these days. And guys, thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening. And till next time, keep growing.
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