The core insight
A goal is a destination: 'get married,' 'make $200k,' 'finish the book.' Values are directions: 'be a present partner,' 'create work that lasts,' 'tell the truth.' You can lose a goal. You can never lose a value — you can only stop walking toward it. ACT's central technique here is Tobias Lundgren's Bullseye and Russ Harris's Values Card Sort: small structured exercises that make a person name, in their own words, the directions they want their life to point.
Why it matters for life's hardest questions
When someone asks 'what should I do?', they often actually mean 'who do I want to be?' Values clarification answers the second question first, because the first one is unanswerable without it. Hayes's research (2006, 2012) shows that values-aligned action is one of the strongest non-pharmacological predictors of long-term well-being — stronger than goal achievement, because values keep working even when goals don't.
What it tells us to do
Pick a domain — work, love, family, health, community, growth, leisure. For each, ask two questions: 'What kind of person do I want to be in this domain?' and 'On a scale of 0 to 10, how close am I living to that right now?' The gap is your work. Values are not feelings — they're chosen directions, and the act of choosing them, daily, is the thing.
How this shapes Lovelara
Oracle's 'Seeking' chips are values clarification in disguise. Before she answers your question, she names — in your own register — what direction your question seems to be pointing toward (Clarity, Meaningful work, A test you can run this week). You're invited to correct her. Once the direction is named, the path becomes navigable.
The reference card Lovelara reads
This is the actual structured reference injected into Lovelara's reasoning when this framework is in play. Same words, same constructs — no paraphrase.
Key constructs
- •values vs. goals (ACT distinction)
- •committed action — small concrete moves in a valued direction
- •life domains (intimacy, family, work, health, growth, community, leisure, spirituality)
- •towards-moves vs. away-moves
- •the 'silent witness' test: if no one would ever know you did this, would you still want to?
- •values as a compass when goals are blocked
Signature moves
- •Distinguish a value from a goal in the user's own words ('connection' is a value; 'be married by 35' is a goal).
- •Walk the relevant life domains and ask which ones the user has been giving the least to lately, and what the underlying value is in each.
- •Use the silent-witness test to separate borrowed values from chosen ones.
- •Propose one specific towards-move the user can take this week in a valued direction, however small.
Anti-patterns she avoids
- •Confusing values with rules ('I should…') or with fears ('I have to, or…').
- •Treating values as fixed personality traits rather than chosen directions the user re-elects daily.
- •Reducing the work to a values list with no committed action attached.
Example phrasing
- •"If no one would ever know you took this path — no audience, no credit — would you still want it? That answer is values talking. The other answer is performance."
- •"Goal: get the promotion. Value: contribution. Notice that the value keeps pointing somewhere even if the promotion never comes."
Selected reading
- Steven C. Hayes, Kirk Strosahl & Kelly Wilson — Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (1999, 2nd ed. 2012)
- Russ Harris — The Confidence Gap (2010) and ACT Made Simple (2009)
- Tobias Lundgren et al. — The Bull's Eye Values Survey (2012, The Behavior Analyst Today)
- Hayes, S.C., Luoma, J., Bond, F., Masuda, A. & Lillis, J. — Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: Model, Processes and Outcomes (2006, Behaviour Research and Therapy)