Coaching practices for Revealed Preference Values

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Revealed Preference 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 saying certain things matter to me, but when I look at what I actually pick up and what just sits there year after year, the gap is uncomfortable
• I say I value family, or health, or creativity
• If you ask me what I value I’ll say family, health, honesty, growth
• I’m not sure my stated values are real or just the ones I think I should have
• I’ve built spreadsheets and weighed every angle on this choice and the more I pick it apart the murkier it gets

Practices that may help

1. Use the someday list as a values barometer
   What you keep adding to the someday list — and what you keep not doing — reveals what you actually value versus what you think you value.
   The Someday List
2. 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
3. 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
4. Excavate your actual values from your history
   Use past choices and sacrifices — not aspirations — to find what you actually value.
   Life Review and Reminiscence Therapy
5. For many decisions, going with your gut outperforms lengthy analysis
   Over-explaining reasons for a preference can actually detgrade the quality of affective predictions.
   Affect Forecasting: Why You Mispredicted How You’d Feel
6. Check whether a third option is changing your view of the original two
   If a new option makes you change your preference between existing options, ask whether the new option should have that power.
   The Decoy Effect — How an Irrelevant Option Changes Your Choice
7. 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
8. 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.
9. Elicit your actual values before looking at your budget
   Write your top five values without looking at your bank statement — then compare the two.
   Values-Based Spending, Made Practical
10. The values–behavior gap check
    Audit the last week: which of your top values did your actual decisions honor?
    Values Card Sort

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.