What do I do once I know my values?

Values can't be maintained in isolation; they have to show up in real weeks. Keep the list short, three to five values that visibly change what you do, and convert each one into specific scheduled action. Focus on the actions rather than on the good feeling they produce, because chasing the feeling removes the thing generating it.

How do you turn values into goals?

Use SMART objectives: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time based. The acronym comes from George Doran's 1981 article in Management Review. Phrase the goal as arriving at something rather than avoiding something, give it a measuring stick you can apply in advance, keep it concrete enough to define, check that it's genuinely value aligned rather than merely productive, and attach a deadline or a check in point. 'I want to be more disciplined' becomes 'I will walk 1 mile 3 times a week for the next 6 months.'

Which type of therapy helps with goals and follow-through?

Solution focused therapy is built around goal construction and forward movement, with the therapist often acting as an accountability partner, co-planner and organizer. It's a common fit when the gap is between knowing what you want and doing it. If follow-through is affected by attention, mood or executive function, that's worth raising with a clinician as well, since those aren't resolved by better goal phrasing alone.

What Do I Do With My Values?

Q: What is an implementation intention?

An implementation intention is an if-then plan that specifies when and where an action will happen, a technique described by Peter Gollwitzer in a 1999 American Psychologist paper. Instead of 'I'll walk three times a week,' you write 'if it's Monday, Wednesday or Friday at 7am, then I put my shoes on and walk the loop.' A 2006 meta-analysis of 94 studies by Gollwitzer and Sheeran found that naming the cue and the setting reliably improves follow-through over naming only the intention.

By Carl Chinn, LMHC/LPC · Licensed therapist since 2012 · Reviewed September 2026

I’ve reached my inner zen and I know what my values are. Does that mean I get to phone it in now?

Not quite.

The things worth having in one’s life, by definition, tend to be value aligned. But Frankl’s point was that we can’t maintain our values in isolation. They have to be interacted with out in the world, in front of other people and inside real weeks, or they stay a nice idea you had once. So how?

Enter a personal brand

A brand is like a taco. It’s made of three to five ingredients, you can tell immediately when one is missing, and when they come together they make something more than any single ingredient offers on its own.

The problem starts when you get to soup. Twenty things comprise your brand. Leave out the onions, or the celery, or the carrots, and they go missing without anyone noticing, because whatever each one was lending to the overall picture was small to begin with.

We want your core values to pop, because they’re what makes your experience of your own life pop. Three to five, load bearing, obvious when absent. Not twenty, all faint.

That’s the test for a values list, by the way. If you could quietly drop one and your week would look the same, it’s an ingredient in a soup. Cut it. The list isn’t a personality quiz result. It’s a short set of things that visibly change what you do.

Most people’s first draft is soup. That’s normal, and it isn’t a sign you got the exercise wrong. It usually means you wrote down everything you approve of rather than everything you organize around, and those are very different lists. Approving of generosity costs nothing. Building a week around it costs something, and the cost is how you can tell.

Why action and not the feeling

If you’ve followed the previous two posts, you have the formula (Part 1) and the ways to find your values (Part 2). So what do you do once you have them?

We already know that grabbing onto the emotional byproduct of living value aligned distracts us from living value aligned, and short circuits the good feeling in the process. The move is the opposite one. Focus on taking action steps toward living value aligned, and stay committed to those even in the moments you’d rather sit and enjoy the results. Do that and you get a constant undercurrent of positive feeling instead of a spike and a crash.

Which means the work is scheduling, not insight. Insight was the last two articles. This one is a calendar problem.

SMART objectives

Consider using SMART objectives to do it, especially if you have ADHD or you find yourself setting goals you don’t follow through on. It’s an acronym that phrases goals in a way that makes them more accountable and more likely to actually happen.

It’s older than most people assume: George Doran laid it out in a 1981 issue of Management Review, writing about corporate objectives rather than personal ones. It transferred well.

Specific. Make the goal specifically something instead of the absence of something. If your goal has a “not” or an “n’t” in it, rephrase it so you’re arriving at something rather than fleeing something. “Stop doomscrolling” gives your attention nowhere to go. “Read ten pages before bed” does.

Measurable. Make sure the goal has a measuring stick, so you can tell in advance whether you’ve succeeded. This is the one people skip, and it costs them. If you wait until after the fact to decide whether what you did was good enough, you’ll either succumb to analysis paralysis or quietly fool yourself, depending on the day.

Attainable. Make sure the goal isn’t so broad, like “getting better,” that attaining it is impossible to define. A goal you can’t fail is a goal you can’t pass either.

Relevant. Is this goal aligned with your values, or does it sound like a chore for something you believe you’re required to do? Value aligned activities encourage us to keep going; we look forward to them. Be wary of baiting yourself into being productive instead of being value aligned. They feel similar for a while, and then one of them keeps going. It’s the same reason aiming at the process beats aiming at the result.

Time based. Set a deadline for when you expect the goal to be finished, or a milestone where you’ll check in with yourself and look at results.

Rewriting a real one

A sample might look like switching:

“I want to be more disciplined.”

That’s not specific, not measurable, not attainable. It is relevant, and it isn’t time based. Three out of five missing. Now watch what happens when you fix them:

“I want to commit to walking 1 mile 3 times a week for the next 6 months.”
“I want to outline 3-5 friends I want to reach out to on a biweekly basis.”
“I will meal prep at least half of my meals each week on Sundays.”
“I will outline 3-5 professional goals I can work toward that will help me get promoted.”
“I will offer to volunteer in my community once a month for the next year.”

And so on. If someone wasn’t doing these things previously and then started to, and they value discipline, they will very likely feel better about themselves, regardless of what else is going on in their lives.

Read that last part again, because it’s the whole series in one sentence. Regardless of what else is going on. The mood follows the alignment, not the circumstances.

One upgrade worth making

There’s a cheap addition that makes these stick better. Implementation intentions, Peter Gollwitzer’s term from a 1999 American Psychologist paper, are just if-then plans. Instead of “I’ll walk three times a week,” you write “if it’s Monday, Wednesday or Friday at 7am, then I put my shoes on and walk the loop.”

You’re specifying when and where the action happens, not just that it will. A 2006 meta-analysis of 94 studies found that this one change reliably improves follow-through over goals that name only the intention. It costs you a sentence.

What a therapist actually does with this

A therapist can help you shape these steps so they’re molded to you rather than the generic examples above, which is most of the value. The generic ones are fine. Yours will be better, because yours will be built out of your ingredient list instead of a stranger’s.

Solution focused therapists specialize in exactly this kind of work. They tend to act as accountability partners, co-planners, and organizers, helping you start hitting the goals you set rather than spending the hour on why you haven’t. If the gap you’re dealing with is between knowing and doing, that’s the lane.

And if the follow-through problem is bigger than a planning problem, that’s worth naming too. Attention, mood, and executive function all affect whether a good plan survives contact with a Tuesday, and none of those are fixed by a better acronym.

That’s the series. Positive feelings follow value alignment. Your values are what you’re responsible for. And the way to live them is small, specific, scheduled, and repeated, right up until the feeling shows up on its own and confirms you were on the right track the whole time.

About the author
Carl Chinn, LMHC/LPC is a licensed therapist who has practiced since 2012. He writes about therapy, attention, and decision-making at Become The Way. Read Carl’s full bio.

Become The Way is a directory of independent licensed therapists. If you want help turning your values into a plan that holds, you can browse therapists and book directly.

This article is for general information and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional mental health care, and reading it does not establish a therapist-client relationship. If you are in crisis or having thoughts of harming yourself, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (US, 24/7 by call or text), your local crisis line if outside the US, or call 911 if in immediate danger.