Verke Editorial

Values clarification: finding what matters to you

Verke Editorial · May 5, 2025

Forget what you think your values are. Forget the list on the corporate intranet. Forget "honesty, integrity, excellence" — everyone claims those and they mean nothing. Here's a better question: what made you angry last week? Not annoyed — genuinely angry, the kind that surprised you. That anger was a value being violated. Your values aren't on a list someone else wrote. They're in the things that get under your skin, the moments that light you up, and the regrets that keep you awake.

Most values exercises hand you a list of 50 words and ask you to pick your top 5. That's backwards. Your values aren't in a list — they're in what you already do when nobody's watching, what makes you angry when it's violated, and what you'd regret not having done. The exercise below doesn't give you a list to choose from. It helps you listen to what's already there. You'll write first, understand the theory after. That order is deliberate.

Four life domains. One question each. Don't overthink it — write 2–3 words or short phrases per domain. Not goals ("get promoted") but qualities ("bringing rigor and creativity to hard problems"). If you catch yourself writing what you think you should value, pause. The test: does it light you up slightly when you read it, or does it feel like duty? Duty means someone else's value that you inherited. Light means yours.

Work / Education

Don't answer from your head. Answer from the last time you felt genuinely alive at work — or in a class, or on a project. What were you doing? Not the task itself, but the quality of doing it. Were you creating? Teaching? Solving? Leading? That quality is the value. Write 2–3 words or short phrases.

Relationships

What kind of friend, partner, or family member do you want to be? Not what you want from others — what you want to bring. Think of a moment when you showed up for someone in a way that felt right. What were you bringing? Presence? Honesty? Playfulness? Reliability?

Leisure / Play

If you had a free Saturday with no obligations and no guilt — and you spent it in a way that left you feeling genuinely alive, not just relaxed — what would you have done? Not "what should I enjoy" — what actually makes time disappear?

Personal Growth / Health

What kind of person are you becoming? Not what you're maintaining or managing — what are you growing toward? If you could describe the person you're working to be in 3 years, what quality would they have that you don't yet?

Draw a simple target: four concentric rings, divided into four quadrants — one per domain (work, relationships, leisure, personal growth). For each quadrant, place an X where you honestly are right now:

• Center (bull's eye) = living fully in line with this value
• Outer ring = completely out of line
• Anywhere in between = the honest assessment

This isn't a grade. It's a snapshot. What you'll probably find: 1–2 domains close to center, 1–2 far out. That gap is the most useful thing in this entire exercise — it shows you exactly where your life is out of alignment, without moralizing about it.

The gap isn't shameful. It's a compass bearing. The biggest gap is where to point your first valued action.

Pick the domain with the biggest gap. Name one action you could take this week that moves you one ring closer to center. Not a life overhaul — a single step.

• Specific: "Call my sister" not "be a better sibling"
• This week: not "someday"
• Within your control: not dependent on someone else's response
• Values-aligned: connected to the direction you named, not just productive

The commitment device: tell someone. Write it down. Send yourself a calendar reminder. Action without commitment is a wish.

Why small beats big: one valued action per week, sustained over six months, transforms a life. One grand gesture, followed by six months of the same patterns, changes nothing. If the thing stopping you from the valued action is a feared prediction, test it — behavioral experiments are designed for exactly this.

In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), values are directions, not destinations (Hayes, Strosahl & Wilson, 2012). "Get married" is a goal. "Be a loving, present partner" is a value. Goals end; values don't. You never arrive at "being kind" — you move toward it. That's why goal achievement often feels empty: arrival fallacy. The goal was supposed to make you happy. It didn't, because it was a milestone on a path, not the path itself. When the path (value) is clear, goals become meaningful because they serve the direction.

The Bull's Eye you just drew isn't a self-help gimmick — it's a validated assessment tool used in ACT research (Lundgren et al., 2012). And the gap you noticed between what matters to you and how you're actually living? That's the key variable. Wilson et al. (2010) found it's not how much you value something that predicts well-being — it's how consistently you act on it. The gap between importance and consistency is where the work lives.

A meta-analysis of 39 randomized trials found ACT outperformed control conditions across anxiety, depression, and stress — with values work identified as a key process of change (A-Tjak et al., 2015). For more on the modality, see Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

These three get tangled constantly. Untangling them prevents most of the confusion people have about values work:

• Values are directions — ongoing, never complete. "Be a generous, present parent."
• Goals are milestones on the values path — achievable, completable. "Coach my daughter's soccer team this season."
• Rules are rigid prescriptions that masquerade as values. "I must never let anyone down" isn't a value — it's a rule driven by fear of rejection.

The critical question: did I choose this, or did I inherit it? If it came from a parent, a culture, a religion, an employer — and you've never examined whether it's actually yours — it might be a rule wearing a values costume.

When drive replaces values, burnout follows — why you can't stop even when you're burnt out explores that pattern. And when you act against your values, it's usually avoidance, not a character flaw — why you self-sabotage unpacks that.

"I value career growth and being present for my family." That feels like a conflict, but it usually isn't one. Values don't conflict because they're directions, not destinations. You can move toward both, though not always simultaneously. The question isn't "which do I value more?" but "which is most alive for me right now?"

Russ Harris's approach: hold both values lightly. Ask which one, if neglected this week, would cause the most regret. That's your compass for the week — not forever, not even for the month. Just this week.

The bull's eye is a living document. Reassess it quarterly. What mattered at 25 might not matter the same way at 40. Evolution isn't betrayal — it's growth.

Values clarification exercises can do a lot on their own, but they have limits. If you're feeling persistently empty or directionless despite doing the work, if the gap between your values and your behavior feels paralyzing rather than motivating, or if exploring your values brings up intense grief or anxiety, talking to a licensed clinician is worth it. You can find low-cost options at opencounseling.com or international helplines via findahelpline.com. There's no prize for doing this alone when help is available.

If you want help sorting the inherited expectations from the real values, Amanda is built for this. Her approach uses ACT — the modality this article draws from — to help you clarify what actually matters and build valued actions into your week. She remembers what you've been working on across sessions, so the work compounds. For more on the method, see Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

Chat with Amanda about this — no account needed