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Values Cards Exercise to Inspire Action
A second values card exercise links values with action. Often our clients can understand what a value is and have some values they recognise that they hold deeply. But they can have problems putting together actions that can be in the service of those values.
This exercise supports our clients in considering appropriate value-driven actions.
In this exercise we have our client consider some values and then explore some actions they can take in the service of those values. Initially we ask the client to select five values cards at random (turn the cards over so the client cannot see which cards have been selected). We then place the selected cards in a pile and read one. The aim is to encourage our client to consider an action, and then more actions, that could be taken in the service of this value. After doing this for the first of the five cards, repeat for the remaining four.
At this point we ask the client which of the five random values resonates the most. We then discuss what action they could take or commit to. They have already made a number of efforts to think of an action that is connected to their chosen value. We can use those or elaborate further.
By choosing a value at random, the client is not forced to consider action to serve the values in their own life.
This exercise will have shown the client that there are various actions that can be taken to serve a value. We can then transfer this to the values the client has identified as important, and show that there are many options – big and small, more and less difficult – that can take us in the direction of our values.
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