Knowing Yourself: Values, Meaning and the Work You Do

In this episode of Inside Out: Mental Health at Work and in Life, I'm joined by Eloise Skinner, an existential psychotherapist, former corporate lawyer and fitness teacher.

Eloise spent five years in corporate tax law before retraining as a psychotherapist. She works in existential therapy, the field concerned with meaning, purpose, identity and values, and she also teaches yoga and Pilates. That mix shapes how she sees workplace wellbeing. Not mental health as a separate box, but what she calls integrated wellness, where physical health, community, a clear mission and a sense of greater meaning all sit together.

We talk about what organisational change does to the people inside it. Eloise's point is that a shift in mission, or a period of scaling, arrives personally for every individual in the business, and that saying so out loud matters more than most leaders realise. We also get into distance: how easy it is in a large organisation to sit a hundred steps away from the person your work eventually helps, and how much motivation goes missing in that gap.

The practical heart of the conversation is values. Eloise walks through an exercise anyone can do with a sheet of paper, and explains why an argument at work that upsets you far more than it should is often a value conflict rather than a personality clash.

🔑 Key Topics

• Integrated wellness, and why mental, physical and emotional health can't be split apart at work
• What organisational change does to the people inside it, and why acknowledgement matters
• The distance between someone's daily tasks and the person their work eventually helps
• Leaders embodying what they ask of others, and the existential idea of dialogue
• The knowledge held by people lower down an organisation that never travels upwards
• A values exercise you can do on a sheet of paper
• Why a disproportionate reaction at work is often a value conflict
• Career change, portfolio working, and why fewer young people want to become managers

💡 Did You Know?

Eloise estimates that around 90% of people entering psychotherapy come to it as a career change, often later in life. Her own route was five years in corporate tax law first.

📝 Actionable Takeaways

• Write down every value that matters to you, group the similar ones together, then narrow it to about five.
• For each of those five, write an example of what it looks like in practice. It brings them to life.
• Through the week, notice when you're living those values and when you're in conflict with them. A repeated conflict is telling you something.
• If your organisation is changing, name the personal effect out loud. Don't assume people will simply switch over.
• Connect the daily work to the person it eventually helps, and make that connection visible to the people doing it.
• If a job isn't a long-term fit, making the plan matters even when the move is years away. The autonomy is what helps now.

🗣️ Join the Conversation

When did you last stop and ask what actually matters to you at work? Share your thoughts and connect with us on social media.

Connect with Eloise: Website | Instagram

1. https://www.eloiseskinner.com
2. https://www.instagram.com/eloiseallexia

UKCP research behind the 90% figure: https://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/news/personal-experience-in-psychotherapy-is-a-growing-motivator-for-joining-the-profession/