AA Step 7 worksheet: Free template

Key takeaways

Step 7 asks members to humbly request their Higher Power remove shortcomings and character defects.

Humility is the foundation of Step 7, and it is separate from shame or self-deprecation.

The AA Step 7 worksheet guides individuals through reflective questions on flaws, acceptance, and readiness for change.

Clinicians can integrate Step 7 worksheets into treatment plans to support both peer recovery and mental health care.

The free printable gives clinicians a dated record of step work to file alongside therapy notes.

Step 7 of Alcoholics Anonymous asks members to humbly ask their Higher Power to remove their shortcomings. It builds on the self-awareness work of Steps 4 through 6, moving from naming a defect to letting it go.

The AA Step 7 worksheet gives that work a shape. It carries guided questions on humility, a checklist of common character defects, and space to draft your own prayer. If you have already worked the Step 6 worksheet, this is where willingness turns into a request.

For therapists, counselors, and treatment providers, the worksheet does a second job. It gives a client’s peer-recovery work a dated record that can sit in the clinical file. That turns a sponsor-led exercise into something a treatment plan can reference.

What is Step 7 in AA?

Step 7 is where reflection becomes a request. The step reads, “Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings,” in the twelve steps published by Alcoholics Anonymous.

It follows three steps of preparation. Members take a written inventory in Step 4, admit their wrongs in Step 5, and become ready for change in Step 6. Step 7 is the moment they stop preparing and ask.

Nobody finishes Step 7 flawless. What the step asks for is willingness, humility, and the recognition that change takes both personal effort and spiritual help.

The role of humility in Step 7

Humility in recovery is honest self-assessment without judgment. You can name a flaw and still hold onto your dignity. Shame does the opposite, and it stalls the step rather than completing it.

• Honest assessment: Naming character defects without exaggerating or minimizing them
• Acceptance: Treating shortcomings as part of being human rather than grounds for self-condemnation
• Willingness: Showing readiness to change and asking for help, both spiritually and practically
• Action: Moving from recognition to concrete behavioral change in daily life

Clinicians working with clients through this step can watch for the slide into self-punishment. A client cataloguing their faults with visible distress needs a therapeutic response, not encouragement to press on.

A practice running a mental health EMR can flag that pattern in the client note. It then surfaces at the next session instead of being forgotten.

Common shortcomings and character defects

Every person’s list is their own. A handful of defects show up again and again in recovery literature and in the therapy room. A separate character defects worksheet goes deeper on each one.

• Anger and resentment: Holding onto grudges and an inability to forgive
• Fear and anxiety: Excessive worry, avoidance, and catastrophic thinking
• Selfishness and self-centeredness: Difficulty considering the needs of other people
• Dishonesty: Lying, minimizing, or withholding the truth
• Pride and ego: Needing to be right, refusing to admit mistakes, acting superior
• Laziness and procrastination: Avoiding responsibility and the work of personal growth
• Lust and sexual behavior: Using sex to control, escape, or harm other people
• Gluttony and excess: Overindulging in food, spending, or comfort-seeking
• Envy and jealousy: Begrudging the success or good fortune of other people
• Sloth in spiritual practice: Neglecting prayer, meditation, or connection to a Higher Power

Two of these usually deserve their own exercise. Grudges rarely dissolve on their own, so a resentment worksheet gives each one a page. For anger that keeps escalating, the clinical anger scale gives a clinician a score to track over time.

How to use this AA Step 7 worksheet

The worksheet is built for individuals in recovery, usually with a sponsor or therapist alongside them. Five steps get you through it.

1. Set aside quiet time. Choose somewhere calm where nothing will interrupt you. Most people need 30 to 60 minutes of focused attention.
2. Review the shortcomings list. Read the common character defects and mark the ones that match your experience. Be honest, because this stays between you and your Higher Power.
3. Answer the reflective questions. Each prompt asks how a shortcoming shows up in your life, what it costs your relationships, and whether you are ready to change.
4. Draft your Step 7 prayer. Use the template on the sheet or write it in your own words. A prayer journal helps if you want to keep returning to it.
5. Share it with your sponsor or clinician. AA practice is to read the work aloud to a sponsor. In treatment, a therapist may review it as part of your care plan.

Clinical documentation of step work keeps peer recovery and professional treatment in the same picture. A therapist who can see where a client sits in the steps reads their symptom changes differently.

Reflective questions to work through

Ten questions sit at the center of the sheet. They are written to slow you down and push past the first answer that comes to mind.

1. Which character defects from the list feel most relevant to your life right now?
2. How has each defect affected your relationships, work, and self-esteem?
3. Can you recall three specific incidents where a shortcoming caused harm?
4. What beliefs or fears underlie your biggest character defects?
5. What do you imagine life would look like if these shortcomings were removed?
6. Are you truly willing to let go of these defects, even though they have been familiar?
7. What does humility mean to you personally, separate from shame?
8. How might removing these shortcomings change your relationships and daily choices?
9. What spiritual practices support your readiness for change?
10. How will you maintain this work after Step 7?

The questions ask for honesty, self-compassion, and a forward look. That combination is what makes behavioral change hold once the step is finished.

The Step 7 prayer

The traditional Step 7 prayer appears in AA literature and is often read at the close of the step. Wording varies between groups. One common version reads as follows.

The prayer opens, “My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad.” It then asks for the removal of “every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.”

It ends, “Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen.” The emphasis throughout is willingness, surrender, and service to other people.

Higher Power means something different to every member, and the step leaves room for that. Some read the prayer aloud with a sponsor, and others write a version in their own language.

Clinicians can acknowledge what the prayer does for a client without taking a position on the belief behind it. For an agnostic or secular client, the same request works addressed to the group, to their future self, or to nobody at all.

Working Step 7 with a sponsor

A sponsor is a more experienced member who guides someone through the steps. For Step 7, that relationship usually covers five things.

• Reviewing the worksheet together. The sponsor asks clarifying questions and shares what their own Step 7 looked like.
• Offering perspective on character defects. A sponsor spots the patterns you minimize and the ones you exaggerate.
• Modeling humility. Sponsors talk about their own ongoing work, which makes clear that Step 7 is a lifelong practice.
• Witnessing the step. The sponsor may listen while you pray or make the request out loud.
• Supporting accountability. After the step, sponsors help with daily practices and regular check-ins.

That relationship looks a lot like a therapeutic alliance. Clinicians who understand the sponsor’s role can coordinate around it, so treatment and peer recovery pull in the same direction. Recording both in one therapy practice management system stops a clinician duplicating work the sponsor already did.

How clinicians can support clients through Step 7

A therapist can do more with the worksheet than hand it over. Six moves turn it into part of the treatment.

• Normalize the step within treatment. Frame Step 7 as work that already matches therapy goals, including honest self-assessment and lower defensiveness.
• Identify cognitive distortions. Use the answers to surface catastrophizing or all-or-nothing thinking, then address those patterns directly.
• Document progress. Record step-work milestones in psychotherapy progress notes, next to symptom scores and substance use.
• Separate shame from accountability. Redirect the step if it turns punitive, because self-punishment does not produce behavioral change.
• Fold it into relapse prevention. Character defects are common relapse triggers, so step work belongs in the relapse prevention plan.
• Allow spiritual flexibility. Higher Power varies by client, and secular clients need a version of the step that fits their worldview.

One line in the client note is usually enough. “Completed Step 7 worksheet, naming resentment and pride as primary defects” dates the work and records the outcome.

Filing the finished worksheet as a documented intervention is what connects the two systems of care. It also gives you something concrete to point at when a treatment plan comes up for review.

Moving from Step 7 to Step 8

Finishing Step 7 marks a shift from inward work to relational work. Step 8 reads, “Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.”

Clients who have genuinely examined their defects are better placed to take responsibility for the harm those defects caused. The Step 8 worksheet picks up from there.

For a clinician, that transition is worth noting in the record. It marks accountability and readiness, and it usually predicts how the next few sessions will go.

How Pabau keeps step work in the client record

Most practices treat step work as something that happens elsewhere. The client mentions it in session, the therapist notes it in passing, and the sheet itself stays in a folder at home.

Practice management software like Pabau brings that work into the same file as everything else. You can send the worksheet as a digital form before a session, so the client’s answers land in their record instead of on paper. Treatment notes, forms, and progress against the care plan then sit in one place.

That matters most when somebody else picks up the case. A covering clinician can see that a client finished Step 7 six weeks ago and what came out of it. Nobody has to ask the client to repeat work they have already done.

Keep step work in the client record

Send the worksheet as a digital form, and the client's answers file straight into their record. Your treatment notes and their step work then stay in one place.

Book a demo

Conclusion

Step 7 is short to read and slow to work. The worksheet removes nothing on its own. A client who fills it in during ten distracted minutes gets ten minutes of value.

The trade-off worth remembering is time against depth. Give the questions an hour and a sponsor’s attention, and the answers change. That is the difference between a finished sheet and a finished step.

If you support clients through the steps professionally, decide now where the completed sheet lives. A worksheet filed in the client record can be referenced at review, handed to a colleague, and picked up again at Step 8. Book a demo to see how Pabau keeps step work and clinical notes in one client file.

Continue your research

Tracking emotions between sessions? DBT diary card gives clients a daily record of urges, emotions, and the skills they used.

Need to measure anger objectively? Clinical anger scale scores one of the defects that comes up most often in Step 7.

Working on the inner critic? Negative self-talk worksheet helps a client separate honest self-assessment from shame.

Rebuilding after the inventory? Self-esteem worksheet for adults supports clients whose step work has left them raw.

Clarifying what the change is for? Life values inventory maps the values a client wants their new behavior to serve.

Frequently asked questions