Coaching practices for How to Find Your Core Values
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Find Your Core Values, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- If someone asked me what I actually care about, I’m not sure I could answer honestly
- I pour everything into one part of my life
- I can’t tell which of my values are truly mine and which I just absorbed from my parents or my culture
- If you ask me what I value I’ll say family, health, honesty, growth
- 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
Practices that may help
- Values Clarification, Made Practical
Values clarification is the work of naming what matters most to you, sorting the genuine priorities from the inherited ones, and using them to guide real choices. The methods — card sorts, ranking, value-consistent action — draw heavily on values work in acceptance-and-commitment therapy (ACT), which has clinical support; living in line with your values correlates with wellbeing in observational research. - Values clarification: what matters most to you?
Identify 3–5 core values — not what you should value, but what actually matters when life is stripped back.
Values-Based Action (ACT), Made Practical - Map your values across the four life domains
Write one core value statement for each domain — work, relationships, personal growth, leisure — before touching the bullseye.
Values Bullseye, Made Practical - Use the eulogy / future-self lens
Imagine how you’d want to be remembered to reveal the values you’d defend most.
Values Clarification, Made Practical - 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 - Rank your top values
Force a strict order among your finalists so conflicts resolve in advance.
Values Clarification, Made Practical - Map your value hierarchy
Rank what you most value so you can draw on the strongest affirmation when you need it.
Self-Affirmation Theory, Made Practical - Make core values operational, not decorative
Use core values in hiring, recognition, and decision-making — not just on the website.
The Rockefeller Habits: Scaling Up with Rhythm and Focus - 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 - 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.
Related concerns
- Core Values Hierarchy
Use core values in hiring, recognition, and decision-making — not just on the website.
Make core values operational, not decorative
- How Do I Identify My Personal Values And What Would Be The Benefit
Values clarification is the work of naming what matters most to you, sorting the genuine priorities from the inherited ones, and using them to guide real choices. The methods — card sorts, ranking, value-consistent action — draw heavily on values work in acceptance-and-commitment therapy (ACT), which has clinical support; living in line with your values correlates with wellbeing in observational research.
- How To Identify Your Values
Values clarification is the work of naming what matters most to you, sorting the genuine priorities from the inherited ones, and using them to guide real choices. The methods — card sorts, ranking, value-consistent action — draw heavily on values work in acceptance-and-commitment therapy (ACT), which has clinical support; living in line with your values correlates with wellbeing in observational research.
- Core Values Excavation
Use core values in hiring, recognition, and decision-making — not just on the website.
- Core Values List
Write your top 20 candidate values on cards, then sort them ruthlessly until you have a ranked top five.
The forced-rank sort
- Core Values Operational
Use core values in hiring, recognition, and decision-making — not just on the website.
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