"Every journey toward an intentional life begins with a single step."
Explore Shop →Values. The Foundation of Your New Story.
Here's where the energy shifts. Before we design the new story, we need to know what genuinely matters: not what should matter, but what actually does.
Here's where the energy shifts. Everything up to now has been inward: understanding, mapping, clarifying. Stage 4 is the pivot. Before we design the new story, we need to know what actually matters to you.
Not what should matter. Not what you've been told to value. Not the values your family, your industry or your culture assigned to you. What actually, genuinely, at-your-core matters.
In ACT, values are not goals. They're not destinations you arrive at. They're directions of travel: ongoing, living commitments about how you want to show up. And they're the anchor that makes your new story hold. Without this stage, everything designed in Stage 6 is built on sand. With it, the new story has roots.
ACT research links values-based action with psychological wellbeing and resilience. In the language of Relational Frame Theory, a new I Am that's connected to a core value carries the motivational weight of what genuinely matters to you, which a merely aspirational one doesn't. That's why Stage 4 comes before design, not after it.
Rating your current satisfaction across ten key life domains: health, relationships, work, finances, personal growth, spirituality, creativity, community, fun and environment. The gaps between where you are and where you want to be point directly to your values.
The why-drilling process: for each domain with a significant gap, you keep asking 'why does this matter to me?' until you hit bedrock, something with no deeper answer beneath it. That's a value. Your top five to eight core values are what the new story is built around.
Knowing your values intellectually isn't enough. For each core value, you identify three specific, concrete behaviours that bring it to life. What does courage look like in your Monday? What does connection look like in your daily choices? Values become real when they become behaviour.
Your core values become the root system for your new I Am Statements. 'I am someone who speaks honestly, because integrity is who I am at my core.' When the I Am is anchored to a value, it doesn't need willpower to sustain it.
Rating ten life domains. The gaps are not problems. They're compass readings.
Why-drilling to bedrock: finding what genuinely matters, not what should.
Translating each value into specific, observable daily behaviour.
Building the root system: connecting identity to values so the new story holds.
"When you know what genuinely matters to you, not intellectually but in your body, everything else becomes easier to choose. Values are the compass. They don't tell you exactly what to do. They always tell you which direction to move in."
Values sound abstract until you find one. Then they're the most practical thing you own. Try this with one area of your life.
Most people find their first values hiding inside their biggest frustrations. In Stage 4 you do this across all ten life domains, then anchor what you find to your new I Ams. For a printable version, grab the free Values Audit.
Free reading and resources that connect to Stage 4.
The free printable worksheet for finding your core values.
What it looks like to make everyday choices from your values.
How ACT's values work applies outside the therapy room.
The first honest look at the identity running on autopilot.
Same facts, a different story.
How beliefs become identity.
Finding the compass.
Feel it. Process it. Let it go.
Creating your new story.
The system that makes it hold.
Not a finish line.
The Self Blueprint takes you through all eight stages, with Andy's guidance in every lesson.