Coaching practices for How to Understand What Someone Values
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Understand What Someone Values, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I keep butting heads with someone over what each of us wants, and we’re stuck trading positions back and forth
- 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 say I value family, or health, or creativity
- If someone asked me what I actually care about, I’m not sure I could answer honestly
Practices that may help
- Using values questions to deepen a conversation
Ask "what matters most to you about this?" to surface values rather than surface preferences.
Values Card Sort - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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. - Align on core values — where they are shared and where they differ
Map which values you genuinely share and which you each hold separately — without requiring convergence.
The Shared Meaning System - Identify your center of gravity on the spiral
Find the value system that currently organizes most of your daily behavior and motivation.
Spiral Dynamics, Made Practical - Model the values you expect (idealized influence)
Become a living example of the values you want your team to hold.
Transformational Leadership, Made Practical - Check action against stated values — the alignment review
Once a week, compare your stated values to your actual choices and name the gap honestly.
The Pythagorean Evening Review
Related concerns
- Finding Your Real Values
Infer your actual values from your past behaviour, not from what you wish you valued.
Values clarification through lived evidence
- Clarifying 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.
Make core values operational, not decorative
- Define Your Values
Imagine how you’d want to be remembered to reveal the values you’d defend most.
Use the eulogy / future-self lens
- Environmental Influence On Values
Find the value system that currently organizes most of your daily behavior and motivation.
Identify your center of gravity on the spiral
- Healthy Expression Of Values
Every vMEME has a healthy and a pathological form — know which you’re expressing.
Distinguish healthy from unhealthy expressions of each level
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