What Are Concordant Values? 10 Coaching Practices to Try
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For What Are Concordant Values, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Practices that may help
- Self-Concordant Goals, Made Practical
Self-concordant goals, from Kennon Sheldon, are goals you pursue because they express who you genuinely are or what truly interests you — not because of guilt, social pressure, or external reward. Research finds that self-concordant goals are pursued with more sustained effort and produce greater well-being when achieved, even when the objective difficulty is held constant. - 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 - 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. - Rank your top values
Force a strict order among your finalists so conflicts resolve in advance.
Values Clarification, Made Practical - 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 values–behavior gap check
Audit the last week: which of your top values did your actual decisions honor?
Values Card Sort - Mapping shared and divergent values in a relationship
Do the card sort alongside someone important to you and compare — do not assume your rankings match.
Values Card Sort - Audit your time against your values
Compare where your hours actually go to the values you say you hold.
Values Clarification, Made Practical - 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 - 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.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I assumed we wanted the same things, but lately our differences keep surfacing and I can’t tell which ones are real gaps in what we value and which are just us never having checked whether we’re actually aligned.
- 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
- 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
- My partner and I keep clashing over things we both supposedly want, and I’ve been assuming we’re aligned underneath
- I say family and health are what matter most to me, but if you looked at my actual calendar this week you’d never guess it
Related concerns
- Couples Values Exercise
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
- Act Values 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.
- Act Values Clarification Handout
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 Clarification Questions
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 List
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 List Long
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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