Life values inventory: Free 18-value worksheet PDF

Key takeaways

This worksheet is a general values-clarification exercise, not the separately published Life Values Inventory instrument by Duane Brown and R. Kelly Crace.

The template lists 18 life values, from family and health to justice, and asks the client to rate each one from 1 to 10.

There is no scoring key, total, or cutoff. The useful material comes from the written explanation beside every rating.

Values work gives therapy and coaching a clear target, so goals connect to what the client actually cares about.

Practice management software like Pabau can send the worksheet out before a session and file the answers in the client record.

A life values inventory worksheet asks a client to name what matters to them and say why. This one lists 18 life values and collects an importance rating from 1 to 10 for each. Beside every rating sits a box for the client’s own explanation.

Therapists, counselors, and coaches can print it, hand it over, and use what comes back to steer the next conversation.

One point about the name, up front. This is a general values-clarification exercise. It isn’t the copyrighted Life Values Inventory instrument published by Duane Brown and R. Kelly Crace. That one has a different item set, a different scale, and its own manual.

What is a life values inventory?

A life values inventory is a worksheet that asks a person to rate a set of life values by personal importance. The client then explains each rating in their own words. It’s a clarification exercise rather than a test. Nothing in it produces a score you can compare against a norm group or use to support a diagnosis.

The version on this page covers 18 values, among them family, health and well-being, career and professional growth, integrity and honesty, and justice. The client rates each one from 1 to 10, where 1 means not important and 10 means extremely important.

Every rating has an explanation box next to it, and that box holds the material you can actually work with.

The same phrase also names a specific published instrument, which is worth separating out. The Life Values Inventory by Duane Brown and R. Kelly Crace measures 14 named constructs through a set of rated statements. It comes with its own scoring and interpretation guidance.

If you need that instrument, obtain it from its publisher. The worksheet here borrows the general idea and none of the item set, scale, or scoring.

Why values clarification matters in therapy and coaching

Clients often act against what they say they care about. One stays in a well-paid job that leaves no evenings for the family they would rank first. Another avoids the closeness they want because starting the conversation is frightening. Writing the values down makes the contradiction visible, and a visible contradiction is far easier to work on.

That’s what a values worksheet is for. It moves the conversation from how the client feels to what the client is aiming at. That gives your patient care management plan a target you can both check progress against.

• In therapy: values anchor the treatment plan. The question moves from reducing symptoms to what the client wants their life to stand for.
• In coaching: the worksheet clarifies why a client wants to change. A reason the client writes themselves holds up better than one you supply.
• In wellness settings: therapy practice management depends on tracking progress against something meaningful. Values shift the measure from “I feel better” to “I am living closer to what I care about.”

The 18 values covered in this worksheet

The worksheet covers 18 values, each one a common source of meaning. The short definitions below are there to settle the client’s questions before they start rating. If 18 feels like too many, a shorter core values exercise covers similar ground faster.

Clients rarely rate everything the same. The pattern is what you are reading for. Look at which values sit at 9 and 10, which sit near the bottom, and which pairs pull against each other.

How to use the worksheet with a client

Print the worksheet or send it out as a digital form, then work through it in five steps.

1. Introduce it as a discovery exercise. Explain that these are the things the client may want their life organized around. Say plainly that there is no right answer, no pass mark, and no score at the end.
2. Have the client rate all 18 values from 1 to 10. In the worksheet, 1 means not important and 10 means extremely important. Ask them to rate personal importance rather than what they think they ought to value. Most people finish the ratings in 5 to 10 minutes.
3. Ask them to fill in every explanation box. This is the part that carries the insight, so don’t let it be skipped. A 9 beside family means little until the client writes down why family earned it.
4. Read the ratings and explanations together. Start with the highest-rated values and ask how much of the client’s week actually goes to them. Then look at the low ratings and ask whether the client is content with that. Record what comes out of the discussion using medical forms, so the answers stay in the client’s file.
5. Tie the plan to what you found. If family rates 10 and the client works 70 hours a week, that mismatch is the plan’s first target. Where the problem is habits rather than priorities, a self-control worksheet makes a good follow-up. Send the same worksheet again in a few months and compare.

How to read the results without a scoring key

This worksheet has no scoring key, no totals, and no cutoffs, and it doesn’t need them. Each value carries its own 1 to 10 rating, so there is nothing to add up. What you read is the ranking the client produced and the reasons they gave for it.

Three things are worth looking at.

• Everything rated 8 or above, since those are the client’s stated priorities.
• The widest distance between a high rating and the time the client really gives that value.
• The explanation boxes under the low ratings, because a reluctant low rating reads very differently from a comfortable one. When a low rating arrives with self-criticism, a self-esteem worksheet makes a useful follow-up.

Resist the urge to turn any of this into a single number. Two clients who both rate health at 7 can mean entirely different things by it, and only the explanation box shows the difference.

Where you need a comparable, norm-referenced measure, run a validated instrument alongside this worksheet instead of treating the worksheet as one.

Reflection questions to deepen client insight

The worksheet does its best work as the opening of a conversation. These prompts move clients from noticing a rating to doing something about it.

• “Which of your highest-rated values surprised you, and why do you think it landed there?”
• “Look at the values you rated lowest. Is there one you would like to reclaim, and what would change if you did?”
• “Think of a decision you made this month. How well did it match your highest-rated values?”
• “If you were living fully in line with your top three ratings, what would look different next week?”
• “Which value feels most neglected right now? What is one small step you could take to honor it?”
• “How do these ratings change the goals you have set for therapy or coaching?”

Prompts like these keep the worksheet from becoming a filed form. Used well, it’s a conversation starter that supports improving patient engagement and commitment to the plan.

Who this worksheet helps

The worksheet suits any setting where a client’s priorities shape the plan.

• Therapists and counselors: values work anchors treatment in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and solution-focused approaches. This worksheet gives you a written starting point. Pair it with a negative self-talk worksheet when harsh self-judgment shows up in the explanations.
• Psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners: values clarification sits alongside medication management and helps patients say what recovery is for.
• Life coaches and wellness practitioners: the worksheet supports career transitions, life design, and purpose work. It also drops neatly into coaching software as a digital form.
• Occupational therapists: knowing what a client cares about keeps rehabilitation goals attached to activities they will actually do.
• Employee assistance and workplace wellness programs: a values exercise gives a group session a personal entry point.

Benefits of using a values worksheet

Clearer goals. “Feel better” is hard to work with. “Spend two evenings a week with my kids” comes straight out of a value the client rated 10. You can both tell whether it happened.

Stronger engagement. When the plan visibly follows from what the client wrote down, the work stops feeling imposed. Clients can see their own words in the goals you set together.

Better handovers. A completed worksheet in the record tells the next clinician what this person is aiming at, in the client’s own words. That saves a session of re-establishing context.

A reference point over time. Keeping the original lets you send the same worksheet in six months and ask what has moved. Changed ratings are usually easier for clients to discuss than changed feelings.

How Pabau turns the values worksheet into part of the client record

Most practices print the worksheet, fill it in on paper, and file it. The ratings then live in a folder, which means nobody reads them again after the session they were written in.

Practice management software like Pabau lets you rebuild the same worksheet as a digital form. Clients complete the 18 ratings and the explanation boxes before they arrive, from a phone or a laptop. The answers land in their client records straight away, where any clinician on your team can see them.

In session you can open the completed form beside your notes and quote specific ratings without hunting for paper. Send the same form again months later and you hold two dated versions to compare. That’s as close to progress tracking as this exercise honestly supports.

Collect values worksheets before the session

Pabau's digital forms send the worksheet ahead of the appointment and file the answers in the client record. You start the session with the ratings already read.

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Conclusion

A values worksheet earns its place by changing what you talk about, not by producing a number. Use it to open a conversation about direction, and read the explanation boxes more carefully than the ratings themselves.

The trade-off is worth stating plainly. This is not a validated instrument, so it will not give you a comparable measure or support a diagnosis. What it will do is get a client to write down what they want their life organized around. That’s usually the harder half of the job.

Download the template, run it at your next intake, and keep the completed copy where the rest of your team can see it. Book a demo to see how Pabau sends the worksheet out and files the answers in the client record.

Continue your research

Need a full psychiatric intake framework? Psychiatric evaluation template covers history, mental status, and risk in one structured document.

Writing up values-based goals afterward? Safer clinical notes shows how to record treatment goals and outcomes without leaving room for misreading.

Running values work with a group? 8-week group counseling plan gives you a session-by-session structure you can drop this worksheet into.

Starting with a new coaching client? Life coach intake form collects goals, history, and expectations before the first session.

Need a consistent format for session notes? Progress notes for psychotherapy keeps every entry structured and easy to defend later.

Frequently asked questions