Exercises — Chapter 11: Values, Beliefs, and Meaning-Making

Part A: Understanding Values

Exercise 1: Values vs. Goals vs. Preferences

The chapter distinguishes values, goals, and preferences clearly.

A) For each of the following, classify it as primarily a value, a goal, or a preference, and explain your reasoning: - "I want to be debt-free by age 40." - "I care deeply about honesty, even when it's difficult." - "I'd rather have coffee than tea in the morning." - "I believe that doing good work matters, regardless of whether it's recognized." - "I want to travel to Japan before I'm 35." - "I prefer working independently over collaborative work."

B) Choose one item you classified as a value. Now examine it: Have you acted in a way that contradicts this value in the past year? If yes, describe the situation. Does the contradiction undermine the claim that it is genuinely your value — or does it reveal something else?

Exercise 2: Schwartz Values Mapping

Review the ten Schwartz value types: Power, Achievement, Hedonism, Stimulation, Self-Direction, Universalism, Benevolence, Tradition, Conformity, Security

A) Rank the five that feel most important to you, in order.

B) Now look at the structure: which of your top values are adjacent (compatible) and which are on opposite ends of the axes? Where do you predict the most internal conflict in your value system?

C) Describe one real situation from the past year in which two of your high-ranking values came into conflict. How did you resolve it? What does the resolution reveal about the actual hierarchy?

Exercise 3: Terminal and Instrumental Values

Using Rokeach's framework:

A) Identify your top five terminal values — the end-states you most want your life to contain or express (freedom, family security, wisdom, meaningful work, genuine connection, etc.).

B) For each terminal value, identify two or three instrumental values — modes of being or acting that support or express it.

C) Look at your instrumental values. Are there any that conflict with each other, or with your terminal values? Describe one such conflict and how it manifests in your daily life.

Part B: Espoused vs. Enacted Values

Exercise 4: The Behavioral Audit

This exercise asks you to examine your enacted values — the values revealed by your actual behavior rather than your stated beliefs.

For the past two weeks, track your time in the following major domains: - Work and professional activity - Relationships (family, friends, romantic partner) - Health (exercise, sleep, nutrition) - Creative or intellectual activity - Rest and recovery - Contribution (volunteering, community, causes)

A) Estimate the actual hours spent in each domain per week.

B) Now list your top five stated values. Compare them to your time allocation. Where is the alignment strong? Where is the gap largest?

C) Select the values domain with the biggest gap. What specifically is preventing alignment? Is it a priority problem, a habit problem, a structural problem, or a belief problem?

Exercise 5: The Stranger Test

Based on your observable behavior over the past three months (not your intentions, your stated values, or what you believe about yourself), answer the following from the perspective of a neutral observer:

"If a stranger had watched all my choices — how I spent time, what I said yes and no to, what I prioritized when resources were limited — what values would they conclude I hold most strongly?"

Write the observer's answer in 200 words. Then compare it to your stated values. Where do they diverge? What explains the divergence?

Exercise 6: Values Conflict Mapping

Values conflicts are among the most revealing and practically important challenges in decision-making.

A) Identify three significant decisions you currently face, or have faced in the past year, that involved genuine values conflicts (not just practical trade-offs).

B) For each decision, name the specific values in conflict.

C) Describe how you resolved or are resolving each conflict. What is the implicit hierarchy that your resolution reveals?

Part C: Beliefs

Exercise 7: Core Beliefs Inventory

Core beliefs are deep, often implicit beliefs about self, others, and the world.

Part 1: Complete the following sentences quickly, without overthinking: - "I am fundamentally __" - "Other people generally _" - "The world is basically _" - "Hard work __" - "Bad things that happen to me usually happen because _" - "Success is mostly a matter of _"

Part 2: For each completion, ask: - Is this belief accurate? What is the evidence for and against it? - What behavior does this belief enable or limit? - Where did this belief come from? (Family, experience, culture?)

Part 3: Identify the belief you most wish were different. What would your behavior look like if you held the opposite belief?

Exercise 8: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

The chapter notes that many beliefs function as self-fulfilling prophecies — they partly create the reality they describe.

A) Identify one belief about other people (e.g., "people can't be trusted," "people are basically trying to help," "people judge me harshly") that has functioned as a self-fulfilling prophecy in your life. Describe the mechanism.

B) What would happen if you experimented with acting as if the opposite belief were true for two weeks? Design the experiment.

C) What is the difference between a self-fulfilling prophecy and an accurate belief? How do you know which one you're dealing with?

Exercise 9: Cognitive Defusion Practice

Cognitive defusion is the technique of changing your relationship to a thought rather than changing the thought.

A) Identify a limiting belief you hold — a belief that functions as a behavioral rule ("I'm not the kind of person who...," "People like me don't...").

B) Practice the defusion technique: instead of "I am not capable of leading," say to yourself "I am having the thought that I am not capable of leading." Then add: "...and I can take the capable action anyway." Write this out for your limiting belief.

C) What does defusion not do? (It does not assert the belief is false; it does not remove the thought; it does not guarantee different behavior.) Why might changing the relationship to a thought be more practical than changing the thought itself?

Part D: Meaning-Making

Exercise 10: Frankl's Three Sources

Viktor Frankl identified three sources of meaning: creative work, experiential value, and attitudinal value.

A) For each source, identify one current or recent experience in your own life that represents it. Be specific.

B) Which source is currently most available to you — where do you find meaning most readily?

C) Frankl's third source (attitudinal value — the stance toward unavoidable suffering) is the most radical. Identify one piece of unavoidable suffering or limitation in your life. Is there a meaningful stance available — not a rationalization, not a performance of positivity, but a genuinely held orientation toward it? What would that look like?

Exercise 11: Baumeister's Four Needs

Roy Baumeister identifies four needs that meaning satisfies: purpose, values, efficacy, and self-worth.

A) Rate your current satisfaction with each of the four needs (1 = very unsatisfied, 5 = very satisfied): - Purpose: My actions lead toward outcomes I genuinely value - Values: My behavior is consistent with principles I care about - Efficacy: I have meaningful control over outcomes in my life - Self-worth: I feel like a good and valuable person

B) Which need is most deficient? Describe one specific way this deficiency manifests in your daily experience.

C) What action — in the next two weeks — would most directly address that deficiency?

Exercise 12: Presence vs. Search

Michael Steger's research distinguishes presence of meaning from search for meaning.

A) Rate yourself on each dimension: - Presence: "My life has a clear sense of purpose and meaning" (1–5) - Search: "I am actively looking for something that makes my life feel meaningful" (1–5)

B) What combination do you have? What does the chapter say about your combination in terms of wellbeing and development?

C) If your presence score is low: what would it take to increase it? If your search score is high: is the search active and productive, or is it anxious and circular?

Exercise 13: Terror Management

Terror Management Theory proposes that meaning systems partly function as anxiety buffers against awareness of mortality.

A) The theory predicts that mortality salience (being reminded of death) will cause people to defend their worldview more strongly. Think of a time you felt your worldview significantly challenged — a conversation, an experience, or something you read or witnessed. Did you notice a defensive reaction? Describe it.

B) What is your "worldview buffer" — the system of beliefs and meanings that, when functioning well, makes life feel ordered, significant, and worth living? What are its components?

C) TMT does not say any particular meaning system is true or false. It says that humans need one. Do you find this claim depressing, liberating, or neither? What does your reaction reveal?

Part E: Values Clarification in Practice

Exercise 14: Full Values Clarification Process

Follow the four-step values clarification process from the chapter.

Step 1: Generate Set a timer for 10 minutes. Write everything that comes to mind in response to: What matters most to you? What do you most regret when you don't have time for it? What would you hate to look back and discover you had neglected?

Step 2: Group and Prioritize Cluster similar items. Identify 5–8 core values from the clusters. Force-rank them: if you could only express one fully, which would it be?

Step 3: Examine the Gap For each core value, rate current life expression (1–5). Calculate the gap between importance and expression.

Step 4: Identify One Action For the most important value with the largest expression gap: what is one specific action this week — not a resolution, but an act — that would more fully express this value?

Write the values clarification output as a structured document you can return to.

Exercise 15: The Deathbed Test

This exercise uses projected regret as a values clarification tool.

Imagine yourself near the end of a long life. You are reflecting honestly on what mattered and what you wish had been different.

A) Write 200 words from this vantage point: what do you most value having done, been, or experienced? What do you most regret having missed?

B) Now compare this projected retrospective to your current life. What is the most significant discrepancy?

C) What specific change — starting this week — would reduce the probability of the regret you identified?

Exercise 16: The Values-Based Decision

Apply the values clarification framework to a real decision you are currently facing.

A) State the decision.

B) List your core values from Exercise 14. For each option in the decision, rate how consistent it is with each core value (1–5).

C) Aggregate the scores. Which option is most values-aligned overall?

D) Is the values-aligned option also the practically feasible option? If not, what would have to change to make it viable?

Part F: Synthesis

Exercise 17: The Values-Beliefs-Meaning Integration

Write a 400-word essay in response to:

"The chapter argues that values provide direction, beliefs provide a map of reality, and meaning integrates both into a felt sense of why life is worth living. In your own life, how do these three elements currently work together — and where are the most significant gaps or conflicts?"

Your essay should draw on at least five specific concepts from the chapter.

Discussion Questions

Discussion 1: The chapter distinguishes values from moral rules. Someone might say, "Honesty is a value for me." But they might also say, "I believe I should be honest." Is there a meaningful difference? Is the distinction between values and moral obligation always clear?

Discussion 2: TMT suggests that meaning systems partly serve to manage mortality anxiety. If that is true — if the "why" of someone's meaning system is partly anxiety management — does that undermine the meaning? Does the origin of a belief affect its validity or usefulness?

Discussion 3: Frankl argued that meaning can be found even in unavoidable suffering. What are the ethical limits of this claim? Are there forms of suffering that resist meaning-making — that should not be reframed as meaningful?

Discussion 4: The ACT values framework says values are inexhaustible directions, not achievable destinations. What does this mean for people who derive meaning primarily from achieving goals? Is there a tension between goal-completion and values-based living?