Coaching practices for Values Gap Exercise
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Values Gap Exercise, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I keep telling myself I’m basically living in line with what I care about, but if I’m brutally honest about my actual behavior the last couple of weeks, I suspect I’m way further from the center than I let myself admit
- I say I value certain things, but when I look honestly at how I actually spent my week, my real priorities were something else entirely
- There’s a low hum of dissatisfaction in my life I can’t pin down
- 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
- I wave through arguments on my side that I’d tear apart in a heartbeat if the other side made them
Practices that may help
- 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 - 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 - Valued living audit: how much are you actually living your values?
Rate both how important each value is and how consistently you have been living it — the gap is where to focus.
Values-Based Action (ACT), Made Practical - The values–behavior gap check
Audit the last week: which of your top values did your actual decisions honor?
Values Card Sort - 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. - Apply the double-standard check: would I accept this reasoning if it pointed the other way?
Test whether you are holding your team’s arguments to a lower bar than the other side’s.
The Scout Mindset - 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. - Use the bullseye to resolve competing values
When two values pull in different directions, the bullseye shows you which domain is most neglected and most in need of attention.
Values Bullseye, Made Practical - Close the gap between where you are and the next level through daily invisible work
The distance between average and above-average is usually many small daily disciplines, not one large talent gap.
The Slight Edge: Jeff Olson’s Philosophy of Consistent Small Actions - Confidence-accuracy gap tracking
After each test, compute and record the gap between your predicted and actual scores.
Feeling of Knowing: Why Your Confidence Misleads You
Related concerns
- Values Action Gap
Rate both how important each value is and how consistently you have been living it — the gap is where to focus.
Valued living audit: how much are you actually living your values?
- Values Alignment Check
Map which values you genuinely share and which you each hold separately — without requiring convergence.
Align on core values — where they are shared and where they differ
- Values And Behavior Gap
Mark on each domain’s bullseye how closely your recent behavior has matched the value — honestly.
Rate your current position in each domain
- Values Compass Check
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.
- Virtue Gap Analysis
Once a week, compare your stated values to your actual choices and name the gap honestly.
Check action against stated values — the alignment review
- Act Values Clarification
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.
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