Growth advice often begins with the destination. Set the revenue target. Choose the fitness goal. Improve the relationship. Decide what needs to change, build a plan, and find the motivation to follow through.
Joey Chandler takes a different starting point.
At Certain Growth Solutions, Chandler begins with the personal values behind the goal. Before deciding what habits need to change or what actions belong on a schedule, he wants clients to understand why the outcome matters to them in the first place.
The distinction is central to his approach. A goal can look worthwhile and still have little connection to what a person genuinely cares about. Chandler believes that disconnect becomes harder to ignore when the work gets difficult.
“Most growth advice hands you a goal and hopes you find the motivation later. I start earlier than that. If the goal isn’t built on what already matters to you, you will talk yourself out of it the first time it gets hard,” said Joey Chandler, founder of Certain Growth Solutions.
The Goal Is Not Always the Best Place to Start
A goal can come from many places. Some are personal. Others come from expectations, comparisons, or ideas about what someone at a particular stage of business or life should accomplish.
That can make a goal appear clear without answering a more important question: Why does this matter to this particular person?
Chandler starts there.
If a client wants to increase revenue, for example, the number alone does not explain what the growth represents. The person may want greater security for a family, more freedom over how they spend their time, the ability to invest in a team, or the opportunity to pursue work that feels more meaningful.
The same principle applies outside business. A fitness goal or relationship goal may look straightforward on paper, but Chandler wants to connect it with the values underneath it before turning it into a plan.
That process does not eliminate the need for measurable goals. It gives those goals a personal foundation.
Values Come Before the Plan
Once the connection is clear, Chandler works from the value to the goal, then to the actions needed to pursue it.
This order matters because a habit by itself can easily become another item on a list. A habit connected to something a person already believes matters has context.
Someone working toward a financial goal still has to make calls, follow up with prospects, review numbers, or complete whatever actions the business requires. A person pursuing a fitness goal still has to make time for the work involved. Values do not remove effort from the equation.
What they can change is the reason behind that effort.
Instead of relying entirely on the pressure to complete a task, Chandler’s approach gives clients a way to trace the action back to something personally meaningful. The daily behavior becomes part of a larger connection between what the person values, what the person wants to accomplish, and what needs to happen today.
For Chandler, that connection is what makes values useful. They aren’t meant to sit separately from goals and habits. They help determine which goals are worth pursuing and why the habits supporting them belong in the plan.
What Happens When Motivation Disappears
The values-first approach becomes especially relevant when progress stops going smoothly.
Chandler’s own experience with burnout influenced how he thinks about these moments. He does not build plans around the assumption that people will execute perfectly. An off day or difficult week is not unusual, and losing momentum does not automatically mean the original goal was wrong.
The problem is what happens next.
When motivation is the primary reason for pursuing a goal, losing motivation can leave little to fall back on. Chandler believes a clearly identified personal value provides another reference point. The person can return to what mattered before the difficult week happened and decide what action still makes sense now.
That does not mean values guarantee consistency. Chandler’s approach does not remove setbacks, competing responsibilities, fear, or doubt. It gives people something they have already identified as meaningful when those challenges appear.
A person returning to a fitness goal may not be ready to resume the original routine immediately. A business owner who has fallen behind may not be able to recover an entire week’s plan in a day. The next step can be smaller. What matters is that it still connects with the reason the goal existed in the first place.
Growth That Still Feels Like the Person Pursuing It
Chandler’s approach at Certain Growth Solutions ultimately challenges the idea that personal growth has to begin by becoming someone different.
Instead, he starts with what is already there.
Values provide the foundation. Goals give those values a direction. Habits and daily actions turn that direction into something visible. When progress is interrupted, those same values offer a place to restart.
For Chandler, this is the difference between pursuing a goal because it appears desirable and pursuing one because it represents something a person has already decided matters.
Willpower still has a role. So do discipline and effort. But Chandler does not want them carrying the entire plan.
His bet is simpler: when the work connects to something that already feels true to the person doing it, there is a stronger reason to return when the work gets hard.
About Joey Chandler
Born October 29, 1970, in Detroit, Michigan, Joey Chandler is an alignment coach and entrepreneur based in Reno, Nevada. He graduated from Whitman College in 1993 with a degree in Politics and has built a career spanning coaching, creative media, photography, retail, and entrepreneurship, including experience with Sports Basement. Chandler founded Certain Growth Solutions, You Are Videos, and Joey Chandler Photography. After rebuilding his life and business following burnout, he developed practical alignment systems that connect personal values with goals and everyday action. Today, his work helps business owners pursue measurable growth while strengthening clarity, confidence, consistent execution, and long-term sustainability.
About Certain Growth Solutions
Certain Growth Solutions is a values-based coaching company founded by Joey Chandler. Its approach starts by helping entrepreneurs clarify what matters personally, then connecting those values to goals, habits, and daily actions. The company applies this values-first process to growth across business and other areas of life, while also recognizing that setbacks and restarting are normal parts of pursuing meaningful goals.
You can also find Joey Chandler on Facebook, LinkedIn, and X.