Values Card Exercise: 10 Evidence-Based Coaching Practices
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Values Card Exercise, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
About 2 minutes
Try it here: list your top three values after sorting
Narrowing your card sort to three makes the values you care about most stand out.
Your top three, after the sort.
Practices that may help
- 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. - 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, 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. - The values–behavior gap check
Audit the last week: which of your top values did your actual decisions honor?
Values Card Sort - Run a values card sort
Sort a deck of value words into keep/maybe/discard to surface what actually matters.
Values Clarification, Made Practical - The seasonal values revisit
Re-sort your cards every three to six months — values shift, and the map should too.
Values Card Sort - Review the bullseye weekly to track real movement
Re-mark each domain every week and compare — small outward or inward shifts are your feedback loop.
Values Bullseye, Made Practical - Values Bullseye, Made Practical
The values bullseye, developed by Tobias Lundgren within the ACT framework, is a visual exercise in which you rate how close your current behavior is to the bullseye in four life domains — work, relationships, personal growth, and leisure. It converts abstract values into a concrete gap-analysis, making it easier to choose one committed action that moves you toward the center. The exercise is part of the established ACT toolkit; direct evidence for the instrument is limited but the underlying ACT framework has substantial support. - 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 - Rate your current position in each domain
Mark on each domain’s bullseye how closely your recent behavior has matched the value — honestly.
Values Bullseye, Made Practical
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- 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
- When I try to name what I value on a blank page I just freeze or write what sounds good
- A lot has changed for me lately
- Working on my values feels like an endless aspiration with no scoreboard
Related concerns
- Act Values Card Deck
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.
- Act Values Card Sort Exercise
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.
- Act Values Cards
Values-based action in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) means choosing behaviors that are consistent with what matters most to you — your values — rather than behaviors driven by avoidance of pain or approval-seeking. ACT distinguishes values (directions, ongoing) from goals (destinations, finishable); the emphasis is on the quality of action in the present rather than outcome attainment. ACT has robust meta-analytic support; values-based action is identified as a core mechanism.
- Act Values Cards Printable
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.
- Act Values Deck
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.
- Act Values Sort Worksheet
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.
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