23. Know Your Values to Maximize Fulfillment & Minimize Nurse Burnout

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Discovering Meaning in Everyday Life: How Personal Values Shape Our Well-being

In this episode of The Nurses' Breakroom, Jenny Lytle, RN, dives into the power of finding meaning in daily life by aligning with our personal values. Building on last week’s theme of personalized self-care, this episode encourages you to explore the things that make life feel purposeful and deeply fulfilling. Jenny shares her own journey of identifying core values and explains how staying true to them can reduce stress, prevent burnout, and enhance overall life satisfaction.

This week, Jenny introduces the concept of the “Joy of Missing Out” (JOMO) and invites you to embrace simplicity by saying "no" to things that don’t align with what truly matters. Through practical steps, like creating a top-five values list and setting weekly goals, Jenny helps you cultivate a life that’s meaningful and uniquely yours. Tune in to discover actionable ways to bring more authenticity and joy into each day.

Grab the values exercise (and a lot more!) in my book bonus resource guide at www.jennylytle.com/selfcarebook

If you're feeling overwhelmed, burned out, or like there’s never enough time, I’ve got something just for you! Head to https://selfcareisntselfish.com to grab your FREE copy of my book, Self-Care Isn’t Selfish: The Compassionate Nurse’s Step-by-Step Guide to Personalized Stress Relief. It’s packed with simple, effective strategies to help you prioritize your needs—without guilt—so you can feel energized, focused, and ready to take on the day. Go to https://selfcareisntselfish.com 

Looking for connection with people who get the stress and self-care struggles of nurses and caregivers? Check out https://thenursesbreakroom.com

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennylytlern/

More ways to connect here: https://linktr.ee/jennylytle

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the
Nurses Break Room with JennyLytle RN.
Today we are talking aboutmeaning and what would make life
feel meaningful.
Last week we were focused ononly you and the things that
make you unique, the things thatare important to you and the
importance of personalizing yourself-care for maximum impact.

(00:21):
So if you haven't listened tothat, be sure to go back and
tune in.
So for this week we arefocusing on meaning and what it
looks like to find meaning ineveryday life.
Sometimes life can feel out ofalignment or inauthentic when we
aren't living in our values,and often we don't even stop to

(00:43):
think about what are myparticular values, my personal
values?
A lot of us know that ourworkplaces have a list of values
, but I hadn't until severalyears ago.
I sat down to really take alook at that and it has made a
difference.
So I encourage you to take timeto determine and write down

(01:07):
your values, and you know youcan do that just on your own.
Or, if you would like a littlemore guidance and some examples,
you can find a copy of myvalues exercise in my book bonus
resource guide and that is atJenny Lytlecom slash self care
book.
So when I went through theexercise myself, I started out

(01:28):
with several words that impactedme and then I whittled it down
to my list of five values andnow that helps to guide me and
to focus me when I start wantingto say yes to maybe too many
things.
Revisiting those is importantbecause when we're out of
alignment with our values, thenthat's something that can lead

(01:51):
to increased stress and justoverall life dissatisfaction.
And you may have heard me talkabout my own story and how I
ended up incredibly burned outbecause I wasn't focused on the
things that really mattered mostto me.
And when we look at our values,when we know what's important

(02:11):
to us, when we really focus onmeaning, that's something that
can bring us a lot ofsatisfaction like nothing else
can.
And then we don't just dothings for the sake of doing
them or say yes because we don'twant to disappoint someone.
I know that FOMO is a very realthing and I have that's.

(02:34):
My natural tendency is to wantto do everything and to say yes
to a lot of things, thatsometimes it's just not the
right time or it may be awonderful thing, but it's not
something that's best for me inthat moment.
And so I don't know if you'veheard of JOMO, but I love that,

(02:56):
the joy of missing out.
And sometimes there is that joy, just that simplicity of a life
where we're not saying yes toeverything, because there are
endless opportunities out there.
There are so many things thatwe can go see and do.
But being really clear on whatis it that really matters to me

(03:18):
can help to weed some of thatstuff.
That might be fun, but it'sjust not right for me in the
moment.
Kind of things and knowing whatwe're doing and why we're doing
it what that means to us issomething that really can bring

(03:39):
a better sense of lifesatisfaction and that also shows
up in the way that we show upand connect with people.
So think about what is it thatmatters most to you and are you
taking the time to do thosethings?
I encourage you to kind of jotdown these questions to think

(04:02):
about later, or pause this andjust give it a little bit of
time to think about right now.
Some next steps would becreating a values list, so
identifying the top five thingsthat matter most to you, and
then setting a weekly goal.
So choose something that'saligned with your values, one

(04:25):
thing that you've been wantingto do or meaning to do,
something that would really fillyour cup.
And do that, because aligningwith your personal values can
really help to decrease stress,and each day is a new
opportunity to focus on whattruly matters to you.
I just encourage you to lookfor those little meaningful
moments every day.

(04:47):
They don't have to be bigthings, it doesn't have to take
a lot of time.
It's incorporating these littleyet very impactful, especially
when they add up things that canlead to really lasting, simple,
personalized stress relief.
Next week, we're going to betalking about intention and how
you are fearlessly pursuing yourdreams.

(05:09):
And until next time, rememberself-care isn't selfish.
It's essential if we want tocontinue to care for others and
live our best lives.