“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”
How often do you think about the question, “What do I stand for?” If someone was to ask you right now, how do you think you would answer? Do you think you could answer?
It’s a big question, not least because it encompasses a question around our values and purposes, but also because it inherently seems to ask, “What won’t you stand for? An equally big and daunting question, but one that can be extremely useful to ask yourself.
For a lot of us, we might never stop and ask ourselves what we stand for. Journaling is here to encourage us to do exactly that. To not just have a vague notion of what is important to us, but to define our purpose and our values, and figure out what we truly stand for.
What does it mean to stand for something?
When someone asks, “What do you stand for?” They are asking you to clarify your set of principles and values that guide your thoughts, actions and decisions. They are asking you to be direct about what matters most to you in the world. Once you know what these things are, you can start trying to live with them in mind, being closely aligned with your values and principles, even when it is difficult or unpopular. This is an important step towards being a more authentic version of yourself.
When you know what you stand for, you are able to make decisions with confidence, because you can ask yourself, does this decision bring me in closer alignment with my values and my purpose? As a result of this, you are able to lead others with authenticity. You may not always be right, but you will be consistent and principled
It is not an easy thing to define your values, principles and what you stand for, and it is even harder to try and live in alignment with those things each and every day, but that is precisely what journaling is for. To help keep your purpose front-of-mind, and help you live a life rooted in integrity and clarity of purpose. It takes work, but your journal is the perfect tool for the job.
Why journaling helps you answer life’s big questions
The act of journaling encourages you to slow down and think more deeply. It can often be difficult to find the time to stop being reactive, and to become more strategic and proactive, but that is precisely what the practice of writing in a journal is encouraging you to do. Rather than constantly rushing from one task to the next, often feeling as though we are doing a lot but achieving very little, journaling asks us to consider deeper thoughts. What should I be doing? Do I enjoy what I’m doing? Why do I feel unfulfilled with what I’m currently doing?
Journaling gives you space to explore your thoughts, beliefs, values and principles and really define what matters to you. Have you absorbed your current values or beliefs, or inherited them without thought? With your journal, you can begin to question them and see if they hold up to scrutiny. This also helps you in times when it is difficult to live by your values because you have already held them under a microscope and asked yourself what they mean to you and how important they are.
Doing this work can also help you discover beliefs that you didn’t know were shaping your decisions and begin to question those beliefs. In this way, you can start to gain more agency in your decision making process, better understanding any underlying thought processes that might be guiding your hand.
Finally, and something I talk about time and time again, is that a consistent, long-term journaling habit helps reveal themes and patterns that can lead to deep insight if you’re willing to regularly reflect on your entries. Not sure what you stand for? Take a look through your journal and note what you write about most often. Look for times when you felt proud because you had lived with integrity. Over time, the answers will be there, you just need to put in the work to find them.
As playwright David Hare once said:
“Writing is the act of discovering what you believe.”
Journal prompts to discover what you stand for
Journaling prompts can be an extremely useful tool to get you thinking about the sorts of questions you should be asking yourself. Try writing freely in response to these questions and then reflecting on your answers. Remember, it’s more important to be honest and authentic than it is to be grammatically correct or profound!
- What do I believe in, even when it’s hard?
- What qualities do I admire most in other men?
- What makes me feel proud of myself and why?
- What kind of behavior deeply frustrates or angers me? What does that reveal about my values?
- If I could teach my younger self three life principles, what would they be?
- What would I want to be remembered for?
Helpful resource:
It can be useful when you are defining your values to see a list of potential candidates and see if any jump out to you. This list from Brené Brown is a great starting point.
From reflections to values: Define your personal code
Once you’ve been journaling for a few weeks, and you’ve explored the prompts shared above, it’s time to go through your journal and review. You are looking for recurring words, themes and goals. Things that crop up time and time again. This indicates these things are important to you or have a significant impact on your life and happiness. Once you have a list of these things, you can start to consider what this tells you about your values. Try and identify 3-5 values that are important to you.
With your values identified, you might want to take it further and write a personal mission statement. Take a look at my post on this for advice, but an example might look like this:
“I stand for courage, honesty, and self-respect. I choose to lead by example, stay true to my word, and act in alignment with my beliefs especially when it’s difficult.”
James Clear – Core Values List
This list from James Clear is another useful resource to get you started.
The benefit of defining your values is clarity of purpose, increased confidence and improved happiness as you start to live more authentically.
Live it: Journaling to keep your values alive
Discovering your values takes work. It’s hard, but worth it. However, that’s not the end of the work. Once you have discovered and defined your values, the idea is to try every day to live in alignment with those values. You will have days when you succeed, you will have days when you fall short, you will have moments throughout the day where your values are tested. Writing in your journal helps to keep you aligned and helps you extract the valuable lessons that come from both living in alignment with, and falling out of alignment with your values. It helps keep your values front-of-mind and allows you to refocus on who you want to be each and every day.
Try these journal prompts as part of a weekly review:
- Did I live my values today?
- Where did I fall short — and why?
- What would it look like to fully live my values tomorrow?
Over time, by staying honest and committed to your principles you begin to live with more integrity and fulfillment.
Conclusion: What you stand for shapes your life
You can have what you stand for defined by life and external forces, or you can take ownership and define the answer for yourself. You can take agency, and discover your own code for living, you just need to start writing today.
Dave Bawden is the founder of This Journaling Journey, where he helps people (especially men) use journaling to rewrite their personal myths, reconnect with meaning, and define success on their own terms. He writes at the intersection of self-authorship, narrative identity, and everyday philosophy.
