As a therapist working with adults and adolescents, I encounter the phrase “I feel stuck” more often than almost any other. It usually comes wrapped in frustration, sometimes with shame, and often accompanied by comparisons to others who seem to have their lives more sorted.
Recently, I have been reflecting on how powerful it can be when clients discover the gap between what they say they value and how they actually spend their time. This awareness often becomes the catalyst for meaningful change, particularly for those struggling with career transitions, life direction, and a sense of being trapped in patterns that no longer serve them.
The Hidden Power of Time Awareness
Most of us have only a vague sense of where our time actually goes. We might know we spend “a lot” of time on physical health or “too much” time scrolling on our phones, but these impressions are often inaccurate. When clients begin tracking their time in concrete hours rather than rough estimates, the results can be genuinely surprising.
I worked with someone recently who realised in our sessions that they were allocating roughly 50% of their time (or thinking) to physical health, 30% to leisure, and only 20% to everything else combined – family, friends, finances etc. This was the first time that they had articulated their time distribution so clearly, and the insight felt significant enough to build our therapeutic work around.
What struck me about this moment was not just the specific percentages, but the client’s realisation that they had never consciously chosen this allocation. They had simply fallen into these patterns over time, and now found themselves wondering whether this distribution aligned with what they actually wanted from life.
Values Versus Time: The Therapeutic Assessment
In therapy, I often use values clarification exercises alongside behavioural tracking. Values assessment helps clients identify what matters most to them – career progression, relationships, health, creativity, financial security, independence. Time tracking reveals where their energy actually goes each week.
The gap between these two pieces of information is where the real work happens.
Consider someone who rates career success as their top priority but spends fewer than 20 hours per week on work-related activities, including professional development. Or someone who values close relationships highly but dedicates most of their free time to solitary pursuits. These misalignments often explain feelings of dissatisfaction, anxiety, and that sense of being “stuck” without knowing why.
Practical Steps for Alignment
The therapeutic process I use involves several stages:
Awareness Building: Clients track their time for a full week, noting hours spent in different categories without judgement. This includes work, physical health, social time, household tasks, entertainment, and personal care.
Values Clarification: Using structured assessments (or even informal discussion and ways to visualise the choices), clients identify and rank their core values. This is not about what they think they should value, but what genuinely matters to them right now.
Gap Analysis: We compare current time allocation with stated values, looking for significant misalignments. The goal is not perfect alignment – that would be unrealistic – but meaningful connection between priorities and actions.
Goal Setting: Based on identified gaps, clients choose specific, measurable changes to make over the coming weeks or months. These might involve increasing time in undervalued areas or reducing time spent on activities that do not serve their goals.
Obstacle Planning: We anticipate what might interfere with these changes and develop strategies for working through difficulties.
Working with Resistance and Perfectionism
Time tracking can initially feel overwhelming or judgmental, particularly for clients who already struggle with self-criticism. I emphasise that this is about gathering information, not about doing things “right” or “wrong”.
Some clients resist the process because they fear what they might discover. Others become perfectionistic about the tracking itself, spending excessive time on the exercise rather than using it as a tool for change.
The key is maintaining curiosity rather than judgement. Time allocation patterns developed for reasons – perhaps prioritising physical health was necessary during a period of illness, or extensive travel fulfilled important needs at a particular life stage. The question is whether these patterns still serve the person’s current goals and values.
Long-term Change and Therapeutic Process
Values-based time management is not a quick fix. It requires ongoing attention and regular reassessment as life circumstances change. What someone values at 25 may differ from their priorities at 35 or 45.
In therapy, we return to time and values work periodically, particularly when clients report feeling stuck or dissatisfied. It serves as both an assessment tool and an intervention, helping people reconnect with what matters most to them whilst taking concrete steps towards alignment.
For those struggling with career transitions, relationship difficulties, or general life dissatisfaction, examining the relationship between time use and personal values can provide both clarity and direction. It transforms abstract feelings of being “stuck” into specific, actionable insights about where change might be most meaningful.
Moving Forward from Feeling Stuck
The goal is not perfect time management or complete values alignment – that would be both impossible and unnecessarily rigid. Instead, the aim is greater intentionality about how we spend our days, and closer connection between our stated priorities and our actual choices.
When clients begin living more aligned with their values, the sense of being “stuck” often diminishes naturally. They may still face challenges and difficult decisions, but they approach these from a clearer sense of what matters most to them.
This work requires patience, both from therapists and clients. Change happens gradually, and setbacks are normal. But for those willing to examine honestly how they spend their time and what they truly value, the process can be genuinely transformative.
Whether you are considering therapy or simply reflecting on your own life patterns, the relationship between time and values offers a practical starting point for meaningful change. Sometimes the path forward becomes clearer when we first understand exactly where we are right now.