Coaching practices for Choose From Your Values

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Choose From Your Values, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • I’ve got a short list of values but they’re all just sitting there as equals, and the second two of them collide in real life
  • If you ask me what I value I’ll say family, health, honesty, growth
  • When I try to name what I value on a blank page I just freeze or write what sounds good
  • I’m frozen on a decision where honoring one thing I care about means shortchanging another
  • I’ve named my top values, but looking back at the actual decisions I made this week, I’m not sure my behavior honored a single one of them

Practices that may help

  1. Rank your top values
    Force a strict order among your finalists so conflicts resolve in advance.
    Values Clarification, Made Practical
  2. The forced-rank sort
    Write your top 20 candidate values on cards, then sort them ruthlessly until you have a ranked top five.
    Values Card Sort
  3. Run a values card sort
    Sort a deck of value words into keep/maybe/discard to surface what actually matters.
    Values Clarification, Made Practical
  4. Resolving a decision with two competing values
    When two values both apply, use your ranked priority to resolve the tension rather than freeze.
    Values Card Sort
  5. Values Card Sort
    A values card sort is a structured exercise — originally developed in motivational interviewing — that forces you to rank competing values by choosing between them rather than claiming you hold all of them equally. The comparison process surfaces implicit priorities that self-report alone misses. Evidence for values-clarification as a lever for behavior change is observational to clinical; the specific card-sort format has good face validity but limited direct trial data.
  6. The values–behavior gap check
    Audit the last week: which of your top values did your actual decisions honor?
    Values Card Sort
  7. Values clarification through lived evidence
    Infer your actual values from your past behaviour, not from what you wish you valued.
    Svadhyaya: Self-Study as a Daily Practice
  8. Clarify values and choose them actively
    Name what genuinely matters to you — not what should matter — and make it a live choice today.
    Psychological Flexibility, Made Practical
  9. Circle your top 5 without negotiating
    From 25, choose exactly 5 — the ones you’d feel worst about not doing.
    Warren Buffett’s Two-List Strategy
  10. Use the bullseye to resolve competing values
    When two values pull in different directions, the bullseye shows you which domain is most neglected and most in need of attention.
    Values Bullseye, Made Practical

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