The Values Compass (Bullseye)
A values clarification worksheet based on the ACT bullseye. Clients describe what matters to them in four life domains, rate how closely their recent actions have matched those values, and choose one small committed action for each.
About this resource
In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, values are chosen directions rather than goals to be ticked off. They describe how a person wants to behave and what they want to stand for, moment by moment, across the areas of their life. Anxiety and depression tend to narrow behaviour toward avoidance and withdrawal, so the gap between what a person cares about and what they actually do widens. Clarifying values gives treatment a direction and gives exposure and behavioural activation a reason.
The bullseye format, developed by Tobias Lundgren and colleagues, asks the client to write a short statement of their values in four domains (work and education, relationships, personal growth and health, and leisure) and then mark on a target how close their behaviour over the past two weeks has come to those values. The centre of the target means living fully by the value; the outer ring means acting far from it. The distance from the centre is the treatment target, not the value itself.
This worksheet is a written adaptation of that idea. It avoids a drawn target so that it renders cleanly in print, and instead uses a 0 to 10 rating for each domain, where 10 is the centre of the bullseye. It finishes by asking for one concrete action per domain, which links values work directly to committed action.
The professional version adds guidance on separating values from goals and from socially expected answers, and on what to do when a client rates every domain low or reports having no values at all, which is common in depression and usually reflects fusion with hopelessness rather than a true absence of caring.
How to use it
- Introduce values as directions, not destinations, using a simple metaphor such as heading west: you can keep travelling west forever, but you can never arrive at it. Goals are the towns along the way.
- Work through the four domains in session. For each, ask what the client would want to be doing, and how they would want to be treating themselves and others, if anxiety or low mood were not in charge. Keep the statements short and in the client's own words.
- Ask the client to rate each domain for the past two weeks only. Recent, specific ratings are more honest and more useful than global ones.
- Choose the domain with the largest gap, or the one the client cares about most, and agree one small action that could be done this week. It should be something the client can do regardless of how they feel.
- Repeat the ratings every few weeks. Movement toward the centre, even by one point, is evidence that treatment is working, and it keeps the focus on behaviour rather than symptom reduction alone.
References
- Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
- Lundgren, T., Luoma, J. B., Dahl, J., Strosahl, K., & Melin, L. (2012). The Bull's-Eye Values Survey: A psychometric evaluation. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 19(4), 518-526.
- Harris, R. (2019). ACT Made Simple: An Easy-to-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (2nd ed.). New Harbinger.
