ACT Values: Examples, a Full List, and a Free Exercise

In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), almost everything eventually comes back to one question: what kind of person do you want to be, in the moments that actually count? That question is the entry point to values work, and it is one of the most useful tools I use in clinical practice. This post gives you concrete examples of ACT values, a full list of the 63 I use in session, a short exercise you can do today, and a way to use the results that goes beyond making a list and filing it away.

What ACT values actually are

A value, in the ACT model, is a chosen life direction. It is a quality of action: the way you want to treat yourself, other people, and the world, expressed in how you behave rather than how you feel.

That definition does a lot of work, so it is worth slowing down on three parts of it.

Values are not feelings. "Wanting to feel calm" is not a value. Calm is a feeling that comes and goes. "Being present with my kids" is a value, because you can act on it whether you feel calm or frazzled.
Values are not rules. A rule is something you obey ("I should always be productive"). A value is something you move toward because it matters to you, not because you will be punished if you don't.
Values are not goals. This is the distinction people find most clarifying, so it gets its own section below.

Values are one of the six core processes in the ACT model, the one that gives the others a direction to point in. Steven Hayes and his colleagues built the whole framework around the idea that a rich life comes less from feeling good and more from acting on what matters, even when feeling good is not on offer (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 2011). That is the part that surprises people. Values work is not about getting motivated or finding your passion. It is about naming the directions you would choose on a day when motivation is nowhere to be found, so that you have something to steer by anyway.

Examples of ACT values

There is no official, finite list. In ACT clinical practice we tend to work from sets of several dozen common values, and the free values assessment on this site uses 63 of them. Here is a representative sample to make the idea concrete:

Connection: engaging fully and being present with the people around you
Authenticity: being genuine and true to yourself rather than performing a role
Growth: continuing to change, develop, and improve
Compassion: acting with kindness toward those who are suffering, including yourself
Courage: persisting in the face of fear, threat, or difficulty
Contribution: making a positive difference to others
Curiosity: staying open-minded, interested, and willing to explore
Mastery: becoming highly competent at the things you care about
Honesty: being truthful and sincere, even when it costs you
Freedom: choosing how you live rather than running on autopilot

Notice that each of these is phrased as a direction you can act on right now. That is the test of whether something belongs on your values list: can you do it today, in some small way? If yes, it is probably a value. If it is something that either happens to you or does not, it is probably a feeling or an outcome.

A full list of 63 ACT values

The ten above are just a taste. Below is the complete set of 63 that I use in session and that powers the assessment on this site, drawn from the values checklists common in ACT practice (the tradition Russ Harris popularized in his card-sort work). I have loosely grouped them so the list is easier to scan, but treat the groupings as nothing more than a reading aid. Plenty of these belong in more than one place, and none of them is more "correct" or more advanced than another. The point of reading a list like this is not to collect the right answers. It is to notice which handful pull at you before your head gets involved.

Relationships and how you treat people

Caring, Compassion, Connection, Cooperation, Contribution, Equality, Fairness, Forgiveness, Friendship, Generosity, Intimacy, Justice, Kindness, Loving, Respect, Romance, Supportiveness, Trust.

Growth, learning, and mastery

Adventure, Challenge, Creativity, Curiosity, Growth, Industry, Knowledge, Mastery, Passion, Persistence, Purpose, Skillfulness.

Self and inner life

Acceptance, Authenticity, Autonomy, Flexibility, Freedom, Gratitude, Humility, Independence, Inner Peace, Mindfulness, Openness, Patience, Rationality, Self-Acceptance, Self-Awareness, Self-Care, Spirituality.

Health, play, and the senses

Beauty, Excitement, Fitness, Fun, Humor, Leisure, Order, Safety, Sensuality, Sexuality, Simplicity.

Integrity and how you show up

Assertiveness, Courage, Dependability, Honesty, Responsibility.

If you want the full descriptions and a way to actually work with these rather than just read them, the free values assessment lets you sort all 63 by hand and see which rise to the top. Reading a list is a fine primer. Sorting one is where the useful discomfort starts, because you have to put "loyalty" or "achievement" down in order to pick something up, and what you are reluctant to put down tells you something.

Why values are not goals

A goal can be completed. A value never can.

"Get promoted" is a goal. The day it happens, it is done. "Mastery" or "challenge" is a value, a heading you keep moving toward for as long as you choose. Goals are destinations; values are the compass.

This distinction is not academic. High-achieving people are often excellent at goals and quietly disconnected from values, which is why someone can hit every milestone they set and still feel hollow. The milestones were never the point. When a client tells me "I have everything I thought I wanted and I don't know why I feel empty," values work is almost always where we start.

The two are not enemies. Goals are how values show up on a calendar, and the cleanest way to see the relationship is to line them up:

Value (a direction)	Goal (a destination that serves it)
Mastery	Pass the board exam this fall
Connection	Call my sister every Sunday
Contribution	Volunteer twice a month
Growth	Finish the certification
Fitness	Run a 10k in the spring

The reason the direction matters more than the destination is that goals run out. Pass the exam and that particular goal is spent, but "mastery" is still there the next morning, ready to suggest the next thing worth getting good at. People who organize their lives entirely around goals tend to live in a strange stop-start rhythm, briefly satisfied and then adrift until the next target appears. Naming the value underneath the goals is what smooths that out, because the direction does not expire when any single goal gets checked off.

Values clarification: the exercise

The formal name for figuring out your values is values clarification, and it is a real, structured part of ACT, not a warm-up. Here is the short version of the exercise I use, which you can also do interactively with the ACT values assessment:

Sort. Go through a list of values and pull out the ones that genuinely resonate. Do not overthink it. First reactions are usually honest.
Narrow. From that pile, choose your top five. This is the hard part, and the discomfort of cutting a value you "should" care about is itself useful information.
Rate twice. For each of your top five, rate two things on a scale: how important it is to you, and how consistently you have actually lived it over the past week.
Find the gap. The difference between those two numbers is your values–action gap. A large gap is not a character flaw. It is a map of where avoidance, anxiety, or old habits have steered you away from what matters.

That "rate twice" step is not something I invented. It comes straight out of how values get measured in the research. The Valued Living Questionnaire asks people to rate each area of life on exactly those two dimensions, importance and consistency, and treats the discrepancy between them as the thing worth paying attention to (Wilson, Sandoz, Kitchens, & Roberts, 2010). The gap is the signal. A value you rate as deeply important and have lived out all week does not need your attention right now. The value you call important and have not touched is where the useful work is hiding.

There is a second version of this that adds a spatial picture, and it is the one I lean on for clients who think better in images than in numbers. The Bull's-Eye is a dartboard: the center is living fully by a value, the outer rings are drifting away from it, and you place a mark for where you honestly sit on each of several life areas (Lundgren, Luoma, Dahl, Strosahl, & Melin, 2012). The four areas are the ones most people's lives actually divide into: work and education, leisure, relationships, and personal growth and health. Seeing your marks scattered across the board, some near the center and some out at the edge, tends to land harder than a list of numbers does. It is the same idea as the gap, drawn instead of counted, and it is the version built into the full workbook mode of the assessment.

Whichever version you use, the mechanics matter less than the honesty. The exercise only works if you rate where you actually are rather than where you would like to think you are, and the values you feel a little defensive about are usually the ones worth circling. If you want the full step-by-step, I've written up four values clarification exercises, including a couple of variations on the ones above.

Turning values into action

A list of values that sits in a drawer does nothing. In ACT, the bridge from values to behavior is called committed action: small, specific, workable steps in a valued direction, taken alongside the discomfort rather than after it disappears.

The key word is specific. If "connection" has the biggest gap, the committed action is not "be a better friend." It is "call my brother on Sunday for fifteen minutes." Something a person watching could actually see you do. Start with the single value that has the largest gap, pick one visible action for the week, and let the size of the step be small enough that you will actually take it.

I worked with someone once, a composite of a few people so nobody is identifiable, who came in successful by every external measure and flat on the inside. When we sorted his values, "connection" landed in his top five and scored about as far from the bullseye as a value can get. He had not called a close friend in months, not out of any decision, just drift. The committed action we settled on was almost embarrassingly small: text one friend, suggest one coffee. He pushed back that it felt trivial next to how bad things had gotten. It was trivial, and it was also the first move in the only direction that had ever actually helped him feel like himself. The size of the step is not the point. The direction is.

If the same gaps keep reappearing no matter what you try, that is often a sign the obstacle is not a scheduling problem but an internal one: anxiety, burnout, grief, or a loud inner critic that deserves real attention. That is exactly the work ACT therapy is built for. If the gap keeps pointing at worry loops, intrusive thoughts, or reassurance seeking, I've written about how I treat anxiety and OCD, and if any of this resonates you can reach me for a free 15-minute intro call.

Where people get stuck

A few predictable things go wrong when people try this on their own, and knowing them ahead of time saves a lot of spinning.

The most common one is picking values you think you are supposed to have. "Ambition" and "achievement" show up in a lot of top fives that, on closer look, belong to a parent or a boss or a younger version of the person, not to who they are now. A borrowed value produces a stubborn gap that never closes, because you are not actually motivated to move toward it, you just feel you ought to be. If a value on your list generates guilt rather than pull, that is worth questioning before you build a goal around it.

The second is confusing a value with a feeling, which is the same trap from the top of this post showing up in disguise. "Happiness" and "confidence" feel like values, but you cannot do them, you can only experience them as a byproduct of doing other things. If you catch a feeling on your list, ask what you would be doing if you already felt that way, and the value is usually hiding in the answer.

The third is treating the list as permanent. Values shift as your life does. What sits in your top five in your twenties is not always what sits there after a kid, a loss, or a career you did not expect. Coming back to the exercise every so often is not a sign you got it wrong the first time. It is how it is supposed to work.

FAQ

What are some examples of ACT values?

Common ACT values include connection, authenticity, growth, compassion, courage, contribution, curiosity, mastery, honesty, and freedom. Each is phrased as a direction you can act on, not a feeling to chase or a goal to complete. There is no official list; ACT practitioners typically work from sets of several dozen values, and the free assessment on this site uses 63.

How do values differ from goals in ACT?

A goal can be completed and then it is finished, like getting a degree or a promotion. A value can never be completed; it is an ongoing direction, like "growth" or "being caring," that you keep moving toward. Goals are destinations and values are the compass heading that points you toward them. Goals are useful precisely because they give a value something concrete to do.

What is values clarification?

Values clarification is the process of identifying and prioritizing what matters most to you, and it is a core part of ACT. A common version asks you to sort a list of values, narrow it to your top five, and rate each on both how important it is and how consistently you have lived it recently. The gap between importance and action shows where to focus.

How many values should I have?

There is no correct number, but most values exercises ask you to narrow to about five, and there is a reason. A top five is short enough to actually guide a decision when you are standing at a fork, and the act of cutting the list down is where a lot of the clarity comes from. You are not throwing away the values you set aside; you are deciding which few get priority when they compete.

Can your values change over time?

Yes. Values tend to shift as your life circumstances change, and returning to a values exercise after a major transition often surfaces a different top five. That is expected, not a sign you got it wrong before. Reassessing every so often keeps the list connected to who you actually are now.

Is a values assessment the same as a psychological test?

No. A values assessment is an educational self-reflection exercise based on values commonly used in ACT clinical practice. It is not a validated psychometric instrument and it does not diagnose or treat any condition. If you are struggling, speaking with a licensed clinician is the right next step.

References

Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2011). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

Lundgren, T., Luoma, J. B., Dahl, J., Strosahl, K., & Melin, L. (2012). The Bull's-Eye Values Survey: A psychometric evaluation. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 19(4), 518–526. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cbpra.2012.01.004

Wilson, K. G., Sandoz, E. K., Kitchens, J., & Roberts, M. (2010). The Valued Living Questionnaire: Defining and measuring valued action within a behavioral framework. The Psychological Record, 60(2), 249–272. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03395706

Want to try it yourself? The free ACT values assessment takes about ten minutes and shows you where your daily actions line up with what matters most. For more on the mechanism behind this work, see psychological flexibility.

ACT Values: Examples, Exercises, and How to Actually Use Them