6 Techniques for Helping Clients Identify and Pursue their Values
Identifying and pursuing personal values is a crucial step in achieving fulfillment and success. This article presents expert-backed techniques to help clients uncover their core values and align their lives accordingly. From reflective exercises to practical tools, these methods offer a comprehensive approach to value-based living.
- Unlock Clarity Through Peak Moment Reflection
- Align Decisions with Values Card Sort
- Discover Values Through Personal Narratives
- Connect Authentically via Heart-Mind Coherence Meditation
- Develop Admired Qualities Within Yourself
- Identify Values Through Role Models
Unlock Clarity Through Peak Moment Reflection
One technique I always come back to with clients is the "peak moment reflection." I ask them to think about a time in their life when they felt completely alive--like really energized, connected, and proud. Then we break it down: What were you doing? Who were you with? What values were showing up in that moment?
I've found this exercise unlocks so much clarity. I've had clients who realized they value creativity or freedom way more than they thought, just based on one memory of building something or traveling solo. It's like their own life is reflecting back what matters most--they just hadn't paused to see it.
I think this technique promotes growth because once you know your values, your choices start to align. You stop chasing what looks good on paper and start going after what feels right. That shift is powerful. It's how you build a life that feels fulfilling, not just productive.
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Align Decisions with Values Card Sort
One technique I use with clients to identify and pursue their values is a values card sort. For in-person clients, I give them a literal deck of values cards, and for telehealth, I use a website (https://www.think2perform.com/values/). The idea is to start with 50 values and cut the deck in half over and over again until you get 5-10 values. Getting clear about values helps people make decisions. For example, when a client doesn't want to do something, I ask if it's aligned with their values. If it's not, they don't do it and don't look back. The opposite is also true: Am I actively DOING things that are aligned with my values? The closer we can bridge our values with action, the happier we'll be.
Discover Values Through Personal Narratives
One technique I use to help individuals identify and pursue their values is narrative-based values discovery. Rather than asking them to choose values from a pre-written list, I guide them to reflect on pivotal life experiences through the lens of personal story. I invite them to think about 3-5 impactful moments and write about what left a visceral imprint--experiences that shaped how they see the world and themselves.
This practice isn't about simply offloading a story--it's about validating what we value through the moments that have impacted us most. By revisiting these experiences in rich detail, individuals begin to understand not only themselves more deeply, but also what impacts them and why. These reflections reveal how certain events shape their responses, perspectives, and emotional processing--and ultimately, how those responses point to values that have always been present beneath the surface, allowing these personal insights to become tools for maintaining alignment, adaptability, stability with flexibility, and integrity.
From this level of awareness, individuals can begin to extract the emotional, mental, and energetic themes embedded in those experiences--what values were being honored, violated, or awakened. The values don't come from an external list--they emerge from personal, lived truth.
This process creates a practical path to living with integrity. It promotes personal growth and fulfillment because it helps individuals develop clarity, congruence, and self-respect. It invites them to use values-based integration not only as an alignment tool that keeps them grounded in their truth, but also as a check-and-balance system to help them return to that truth whenever they feel unstable, indecisive, or misaligned. When someone reconnects with their values in this way, they gain not just insight, but the capacity for a self-relationship built on trust, allowing them to move through life with more intentionality, integrity, and the ease to feel whole and convicted about it.
Connect Authentically via Heart-Mind Coherence Meditation
One technique I use to help clients identify and pursue their values is meditation centered on authentic heart-mind coherence, as brilliantly taught by Dr. Joe Dispenza, a leading neuroscience and meditation expert. This practice is incredibly powerful because it allows individuals to connect deeply with both their hearts and minds, creating a state of alignment where their true values can surface clearly.
In our fast-paced, distraction-filled world, it's easy to get disconnected from what truly matters. Many people struggle to understand what their core values are because they are caught up in external expectations, past experiences, or future anxieties. Heart-mind coherence meditation helps clients quiet the noise and tune into their authentic selves, creating space to reflect on what is truly important to them.
Through this meditation, clients focus on integrating their heart (emotions, desires, and passions) with their mind (logic, reason, and intellect). This alignment enables them to identify values that are not only meaningful but sustainable, because they come from a place of deep self-awareness and inner peace. When their hearts and minds are in harmony, they can more clearly discern the values that resonate with their true essence, rather than what society, family, or other external forces may have instilled in them.
The practice of heart-mind coherence meditation encourages clients to "visualize" their most meaningful life experiences, reflect on the moments that brought them the most joy and fulfillment, and bring attention to the feelings and thoughts that emerged during those times. This process helps to crystallize what they value most--whether it's love, integrity, creativity, service, or something else--and align their actions with these values moving forward.
This technique promotes personal growth by fostering self-awareness, emotional clarity, and mental focus. As clients identify their core values, they gain a clearer sense of direction, which empowers them to make decisions that are in line with their authentic selves. This alignment not only fosters greater fulfillment but also leads to a more balanced and purposeful life. It allows clients to act from a place of deep conviction, knowing that their choices are guided by what truly matters to them.
Ultimately, heart-mind coherence meditation helps clients pursue their values with greater intention, helping them create a life that is not only successful but also deeply fulfilling.
Develop Admired Qualities Within Yourself
When working with clients who are intensely attracted to another person, whether it's someone they know or a celebrity, I help them identify the specific qualities that they are attracted to. Then, I help them find ways to develop those qualities within themselves. This shifts their attention from seeking validation from others to strengthening and empowering their own sense of self. Often, once they realize they are capable of becoming the person they yearned for, that obsessive attraction dissolves, allowing them the freedom to move forward with confidence on their own.
Identify Values Through Role Models
In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), I ask the client to think of someone they admire or look up to, whether it be someone they know personally (e.g., a mentor) or not (e.g., a famous person). We then identify the qualities they admire about that person, such as their honesty, integrity, intelligence, or knowledge. By identifying someone we look up to, we can reflect on the values that are important to us.
With values, we have a choice: we can choose to pursue what's important to us. So, after identifying our values, we need to think about specific, measurable, attainable goals that relate to these values. For example, if knowledge is a value of mine, I may need to go to school, take some classes, or read some books. By setting and achieving goals related to a value, we can live a life in accordance with that value.
