Life Coaching Tool - What's Important?

This tool is also highly effective and helps when you need to make a decision or to help you understand why you are feeling a bit stressed in your life.

Values help us to determine what is important in our life. Some important values may be love, security, health, wealth, family, humour, integrity, honesty, freedom, respect, success, stability, excitement, justice.

Living your life aligned with your values is important for a sense of well being. Living a life which violates your values can lead to confusion, frustration and depression.

For example, if you are a person who values your family but you are working long hours which mean you spend little quality time with them, you are violating your values.

If you value respect yet, at work you do not feel that your opinions and views are listened to or if you value your health but take no exercise, you are living a life which is in conflict with a value.


Knowing your values enables you to be more in control of your actions and your emotions, make better decisions and live a life knowing what is truly important to you.

You will also know what you need to do to feel good!



Values Exercise - Step 1

To see if you are living your life in line with your values; take an area of your life which isn’t quite how you would like it to be e.g. weight loss, career, relationship etc.

Next, make 2 lists: one to list feelings you would like to feel, and the other will have those that you would like to avoid feeling.

Generate the lists by asking “What’s important to you about this area of my life”. “What else”, and “what else”.  Don’t stop writing the list until you have at least 8 – and aim for at least 10.


Values Exercise - Step 2

Once you have done this put them into order.  Putting your most important value first and the most important things not to feel.

This is best done through the Guarantee Game. Pretend that you have a guarantee that one value from the entire list will be fulfilled on a consistent basis from now on. So which of your values would you select? For example, would it be to feel secure, or healthy, or have peace of mind? Or to be guaranteed that you will not feel bored, or ill, or depressed? And pretend that you can only have one guarantee.

Whatever you choose becomes your No. 1 Value.

Now continue the Guarantee Game. Pretend that you have been given a bonus choice. You can keep the
guaranteed No. 1 - and select one more from the list. This becomes your No. 2 value.
Continue this process until you have at least 6 or 7 values listed. This is your values' list in order of their current importance in your life.

You can do this exercise for each important area of your life and you may well find that some values appear in many areas – these will be your core values

Values Exercise - Step 3

Enjoy a life being true to yourself!