Values Worksheet and Card Sort

How the values card sort works

1. Sort the cards. Forty values appear one at a time. Put each in a pile: very important, important or not important. Go with your first reaction. On a keyboard, press 1, 2 or 3.
2. Check your piles. See all three piles at once and move anything that landed in the wrong place. If more than about ten cards are very important, move a few down.
3. Pick your top 5. Choose the 5 that matter most and put them in order. This is the hard part, and the most useful.
4. How am I living it? Rate each value from 0 to 10 for how much you are living it right now, and choose one small action for this week.
5. Your values worksheet. Print it or copy it. The value with the lowest rating is marked as your biggest gap.

Values in ACT

Values are at the center of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), developed by psychologist Steven C. Hayes with Kirk Strosahl and Kelly Wilson. In ACT, values are the directions you want your life to go in: how you want to treat people, what you want to stand for, what you want to give your time to (Hayes and colleagues, 2006).

A common way to explain it is a compass. A value is a direction, like west. A goal is a place you can reach, like a town to the west. You can reach a goal and be done with it, but you never finish going west. You can always take one more step. That is why this worksheet ends with a small action, not a big plan.

ACT also expects that moving toward a value will sometimes feel uncomfortable. Someone who values connection may feel nervous calling an old friend. The point is not to wait until the nerves pass, but to take the step with them.

Using the values worksheet in therapy

• Let the client sort without commentary. Ask about the hard calls afterwards: "Which card took you longest?"
• Ask about the not important pile, too. "Achievement is not important to me" may be relief, or it may be a value that got hurt.
• Watch for "should" values: ones picked because a parent, partner or culture expects them. Ask, "If no one would ever know, would this still be in your top five?"
• Use the 0 to 10 gaps as a guide, not a grade. A low number is a direction for the next few weeks, not a failure.
• Check in on the small actions next session. Did it happen? What got in the way? What did it feel like?

With teens and with couples

Teens often find the card sort easier than open questions about what matters, and the not important pile can be the best conversation in the session. For couples, have each partner sort on their own device, then compare top fives. The overlap is common ground, and the differences are worth getting curious about, not fixing.

Using it over telehealth or as homework

1. Share your screen and press Present mode. The client tells you which pile each card goes in.
2. Or send the link. The client sorts on their own, then prints or copies their worksheet to bring to the next session.
3. Nothing is saved on our side, so there is no account and nothing for anyone else to see.

Values work fits well alongside self-esteem worksheets, and it is part of the work our therapists do in individual counseling in Brooklyn and by video.

The list of values

The card sort uses these forty values. They are written in our own words, and you can print them as cards from the PDF.

• Achievement
• Adventure
• Authenticity
• Balance
• Beauty
• Belonging
• Calm
• Caring
• Community
• Courage
• Creativity
• Curiosity
• Fairness
• Faith
• Family
• Freedom
• Friendship
• Fun
• Generosity
• Gratitude
• Growth
• Health
• Honesty
• Humor
• Independence
• Kindness
• Knowledge
• Leadership
• Love
• Loyalty
• Nature
• Order
• Patience
• Purpose
• Respect
• Responsibility
• Security
• Self-care
• Skill
• Tradition

Printable values cards and worksheet (PDF)

The free PDF has three pages: forty value cards to cut out, twenty to a page, each with a short description; and the values worksheet, with space for your top five, a 0 to 10 rating for each and one small action, plus a few questions to reflect on. It is free to print and share.