Ep 127 - What Matters Now

You used to want the promotion. Used to thrive on the pace. Used to measure yourself against a clear timeline. Now? That stuff leaves you flat. And you're wondering what's wrong with you.

Nothing's wrong. Your values just evolved. In this episode, we talk about why big life experiences reorder your priorities so fast, why that feels like losing yourself (but isn't), and how the real integrity problem is not updating your life to match what you actually care about now.

Transcript

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What do you do when the things that used to drive you, the things that matter so deeply that you are pressed to take action on them don't drive you forward anymore? At first, it may feel like a malfunction. Over time, it may feel like you're losing a sense of who you are, and unaddressed, it can seem like maybe you never knew who you were to begin with anyway. Hi, this is Jordana. I'm the CEO of the Recon Network and host of the In Brief podcast, and today we're talking about values and how they can change after big life experiences. But while it may feel that you're losing yourself, evolving priorities aren't a sign of inconsistency. They're just a sign that you've been paying attention. This is in brief. Let's get to it. Over your lifetime, you built a life around a set of values. They could have been ideals that you were handed in youth, or ones you adapted to in service, or even some that you just learned along the way. And those values could be anything: achievement, mission, justice, advancement, being the one who could always be counted on. But whatever they were, those values organized everything. What you said yes to, what you sacrificed, and even how you measured a good year. But then something shifted. It could have been gradually or maybe all at once. And now things just don't feel the same. The promotion that would have thrilled you five years ago leaves you a little flat, or the pace you used to thrive on now just feels like noise. And soon you catch yourself caring about things you never used to think about. Time, peace, presence, or health, and caring way less about things that used to actually define who you were. If you're like a lot of people going through this shift, you might treat it as a problem rather than just information. You try and reignite the old drive, and then when nothing sparks, you wonder what's wrong with you. And before you know it, you feel like a stranger inside your own priorities. So let me first say this clearly: there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. Your values have simply changed because your life has changed. And here's why it happens. See, values aren't installed once at a human factory. They're actually conclusions. They're conclusions your mind draws from what you've lived. When you were 22, your conclusions were based on 22 years of information. And not all information, only the information that you had access to. What you lived, what you experienced, what you saw and heard, and were taught. Now, since then, every deployment, every loss, every birth, every failure, and even every quiet Tuesday has added data. So some of the conclusions you ended up with, the values you held as personal truths, couldn't stay the same. There was more information, more lived experiences to go off of. So the conclusions updated. And really it would be strange if they didn't, right? But those big experiences like major transitions or life shifts, what I like to call hijacks, reorder things especially fast. Just think about it this way: anyone who has watched a friend or family member die young holds time differently afterwards. Anyone who's missed years of their kids' lives for work weighs presence differently. Anyone who achieved the thing they wanted the most in all of the world and then realized that they felt nothing learned something about achievement that no one could have told them in advance. Those aren't mood swings or emotional reactions, they're lessons. And those lessons are what transform into future values. So even though it's completely natural, there are two things that make this value shift really hard. The first is internal. Are you who you thought you were anymore? In this state, consistency feels like integrity. You made commitments based on old values. You told people who you were, and if you couldn't, the values that you held in front of them did. So in this case, changing feels like breaking your word to your former self. But here's the thing: integrity isn't defined as loyalty to a previous version of you. It's honesty about the current one. The real integrity problem is continuing to live by values that you no longer hold and performing as a self that isn't there anymore. But the second thing that makes this hard is external, how other people see you. They knew the old you and they calibrated to that person. So when your priorities shift, some of them might say, You've changed. And it might sound like an accusation. Hell, it might even be an accusation, but you need to address it as an observation. Yes, you've changed. You are supposed to. The alternative to changing is stagnation, and life is nothing but constant change. Still, the knowing of this feeling and experience around a value shift is hard, even when you know it's natural and actually a good sign of growth. But that's only because nobody rechecks their values on purpose. We set our lives up around the values that we hold at that time: the job, the schedule, the commitments. But then when the values quietly move, the life stops fitting. And we can't figure out why everything feels off initially. The mismatch isn't dramatic, but it is noticeable. After all, you're running a today life on last decade's operating system. So how do we finish this shift and embrace who we've become while acknowledging who we are? Well, we make it deliberate. Here's a quick exercise. Without looking at any list and without considering what you're supposed to say, write down a few things that actually matter to you right now. See where your mind goes when it's quiet or the things that you crave when it's not. Take a look at what you envy. Envy is embarrassingly honest data about what you want. Look at what you've stopped being willing to trade away or negotiate on. As you think through these things, write them down. And then when you're done, compare that list to your calendar and your commitments. You may notice that you see gaps in what you say you value and how you actually show up. The gaps that you find aren't character flaws, they're just deferred maintenance. Your life was built by someone with a different list of values. And now that you know what needs renovating, you can adjust. Not all at once, but at least a little bit and on purpose. But keep in mind that renovations don't last forever, and you can and you should expect this to happen again. The values you write down today are still provisional, and 10 more years of living will update them too. But the ultimate goal isn't to find your final lasting values anyway. It's to stay in honest contact with your current ones and understand that the message they are sending you, this is what matters most, is a guidepost that can offer you direction in hard times and a decision matrix when things are confusing. The people who seem most lost in midlife aren't usually people who lack values. Oftentimes they're just people who are still living in their old ones. And the people who seem most alive are the ones who gave themselves permission to want what they want now, not what they wanted when they started. Now, a value shift, especially when in transition, doesn't mean you've lost yourself. It only means you've updated and you need to adjust your acceptance of the shift. After all, the only mistake is living by a list that you no longer believe in. So live by one that's true now.

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Most transition programs assume you already know what you want. But if you don't, then what? At the Recon Network, we run free events year-round to meet you where you are. From our annual VET Summit to online workshops and even in-person local events, we provide real training, real conversations, and practical insights you can use the same day. With a goal to get you the tools you need to find direction and meaning now. So if you don't know what you want or where you want to go, no worries. There's no cost, no pressure. Just support when you need it. So find your next event at recon.bet and join us for something new.