Coaching practices for What Problems Reveal Values
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For What Problems Reveal Values, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
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 keep reading my grief and my anger as proof there’s something broken in me
- I say I value family, or health, or creativity
- 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
- There’s a low hum of dissatisfaction in my life I can’t pin down
Practices that may help
- 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 Absent But Implicit: What Problems Reveal About What We Value
Every problem story implies a violated value — surfacing that value reveals the person’s strengths, not just their struggles.
Narrative Therapy: Rewriting the Stories That Define You - 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. - 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 - 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. - 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 - 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 - 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 - Values clarification: what matters most to you?
Identify 3–5 core values — not what you should value, but what actually matters when life is stripped back.
Values-Based Action (ACT), Made Practical
Related concerns
- Finding Your Real Values
Infer your actual values from your past behaviour, not from what you wish you valued.
Values clarification through lived evidence
- Core Values Excavation
Use core values in hiring, recognition, and decision-making — not just on the website.
Make core values operational, not decorative
- How Can I Find What My Personal Values Are
Identify 3–5 core values — not what you should value, but what actually matters when life is stripped back.
Values clarification: what matters most to you?
- How Do I Figure Out My Values
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.
- How To Identify Your Values
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 Values
Write your top 20 candidate values on cards, then sort them ruthlessly until you have a ranked top five.
The forced-rank sort
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