NOVEMBER 2025Why Change Brings Out the Worst
(and the Best) in Us
(and the Best) in Us
I’ve just spent a week packing up a flat with four other adults.
Five opinions. One kettle.
Every cupboard a potential argument.
One person wanted to label every box.
Another wanted to throw half of it out.
Someone else disappeared down memory lane every time we found an old photo.
And me — just trying to stop anyone packing the tea bags before the kettle was unplugged.
It wasn’t really about boxes, though.
It was about how we each handle change.
Because nothing brings out your quirks faster than a bit of upheaval.
Our Personal Values
“They quietly steer how we deal with uncertainty — what we protect, what we avoid.”
Values are the WHY.
That’s where our personal values come in.
They’re the WHY behind what we do.
They quietly steer how we deal with uncertainty — what we protect, what we avoid, and what sends us round the bend when someone else does it differently.
Personality is the HOW.
Personality is different. Personality is the HOW.
It’s the style, the flavour, the surface stuff people see.
You might be loud, quiet, calm, impatient — that’s personality.
Take our little packing team
On the surface, we had five different personalities — a mix of calm, bossy, nostalgic, impatient, and me (somewhere between resigned and caffeinated).
But underneath, our values were doing the heavy lifting.
One of us needed order to feel safe.
One needed freedom to feel in control.
One needed connection — a chance to tell stories and hold onto the memories.
None of it was wrong.
But when you throw those needs into one small flat full of bubble wrap, you’ve got five nervous systems all trying to feel okay in completely different ways.
That’s the thing about change — it doesn’t create tension, it just shines a light on it.
It turns up the volume on whatever’s already there.
You like certainty? You’ll plan harder.
You like momentum? You’ll move faster.
You like meaning? You’ll start reflecting.
And when those clash, it’s chaos — but understandable chaos.
You Don’t Need Fixing,
Just Understanding.
Just Understanding.
The useful bit is this:
once you start noticing what’s driving you, it all softens.
You stop thinking, “Why am I like this?”
You stop snapping at people who do things differently.
You realise they’re not trying to annoy you — they’re just being them and they are as desperateand committed to achieving the goal as much as you are.
That’s what I love about understanding values.
It’s not self-help nonsense. It’s just clarity.
It helps you see what’s underneath your reactions, so you can stop judging yourself (and everyone else) quite so harshly.
Feelings are triggered when your actions are not aligned to your values
So, next time you feel yourself getting tense — when you’re about to say something
you’ll regret, or you can feel your shoulders rising up round your ears — pause.
Ask yourself: What’s really going on here?
What am I trying to protect or hang onto?
What do I need to feel okay right now.
It might be calm.
It might be progress.
It might be connection.
Whatever it is, that’s your Values talking.
Want to find out YOUR Values?
That’s why I created the vivify values snapshot — not as another personality quiz (we’ve all done enough of those), but as a quick way to understand your why in these moments of tension and change.
It explains and helps you connect with the feelings that get triggered beneath the surface : the things that quietly steer your choices, your comfort zone, and your reactions when life changes gear.
Quick and Simple
Provide your email below and I'll send you a link to your vivify values snapshot.
Because change doesn’t expose who you are. It just shows you what matters to you. And once you know that, you can handle almost anything — even five adults, one kettle, and too many boxes.