Coaching practices for Values and Decision Making
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Values and Decision Making, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I’m frozen on a decision where honoring one thing I care about means shortchanging another
- Under all this pressure to please people and react, I’m about to make a call that I already sense doesn’t square with who I actually want to be
- 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
- 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
- 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 - Use the 10-year view to check values alignment
Ask: is the 10-year version of this choice consistent with what I actually care about?
The 10-10-10 Rule - Rank your top values
Force a strict order among your finalists so conflicts resolve in advance.
Values Clarification, Made Practical - Expected Value Thinking: Deciding Under Uncertainty
Expected value thinking multiplies each possible outcome by its probability and sums the results, giving a single number that represents the average payoff of a decision. It is the mathematical foundation of rational decision-making under uncertainty — well grounded in decision theory — but it has real limits: probabilities are often uncertain, outcomes are not always quantifiable, and raw expected value ignores risk aversion that can be legitimate. - 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 - The values–behavior gap check
Audit the last week: which of your top values did your actual decisions honor?
Values Card Sort - 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 - Apply the "value per dollar" test to major purchases
Before a large purchase, ask how much wellbeing per dollar this generates relative to alternatives at the same cost.
Values-Based Spending, Made Practical - Evaluate solutions against costs, benefits, and fit
Rate each solution on likelihood of success, personal costs, and fit with your values.
Problem-Solving Therapy, Made Practical - Name the values the regret is about
Regret points at a violated value — make the value explicit.
The Regret-Minimization Framework
Related concerns
- How To Make Values Based Decisions
When two values both apply, use your ranked priority to resolve the tension rather than freeze.
Resolving a decision with two competing values
- Values Based Decision Making
Values-based spending is the practice of deliberately allocating money toward what you have identified as genuinely important to you — and cutting spending that does not reflect those priorities. It is not minimalism or frugality; it is a decision framework that uses your stated values as the filter for every financial choice. The evidence base is primarily from financial psychology and hedonic wellbeing research, not clinical trials.
- Decide By Your Values
Force a strict order among your finalists so conflicts resolve in advance.
Rank your top values
- Forced Choice Values
Force a strict order among your finalists so conflicts resolve in advance.
- How To Make Decisions Aligned With Values
Ask: is the 10-year version of this choice consistent with what I actually care about?
Use the 10-year view to check values alignment
- When Self Authorship Locate Your Stage
Notice whether your current decision is driven by others’ expectations or by your own internal standard.
Locate where you’re authored from
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