Linking goals to actions.

Planning for life and careers.

Growth
Thinking about career can be daunting, and it can be hard to know where to start. Linking our plans to our values and goals can be a useful, and this activity challenges you to think about how you can do this.
Author

Ben Whalley

Overview

Many students find it challenging to connect their daily actions with their long-term career goals.

You might know you’re interested in psychology, but struggle to see how your current studies and activities link to your future aspirations.

This activity uses a values-based approach to career planning. Rather than simply following opportunities as they arise, you’ll identify what really matters to you and use these core values as a foundation for making decisions about how you spend your time.

We’ll be using psychological principles of self-reflection and goal-setting in your own life.

Instructions

Step 1: Values Discovery (5 minutes)

From the list below, select 7 values that resonate most strongly with you. These should be things you consider non-negotiable or deeply important:

  • Accomplishment: an act or instance of carrying into effect; fulfillment
  • Accountability: an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility for one’s actions
  • Charity: generosity and helpfulness towards the needy
  • Commitment: an agreement to do something in the future; a pledge
  • Community: a social, religious, or occupational group sharing common interests
  • Compassion: feeling sympathy for those stricken by misfortune, with a desire to alleviate the suffering
  • Competition: a contest for some prize, honor, or advantage
  • Conviction: a fixed or firm belief
  • Creativity: the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, or relationships; originality
  • Decisiveness: displaying no or little hesitation; resolute; determined
  • Discipline: behavior in accord with rules of conduct; behavior maintained by training and control
  • Diversity: the inclusion of different types of people
  • Effectiveness: producing a purpose; producing the intended or expected result
  • Efficiency: able to accomplish something with the least waste of time and effort
  • Excellence: possessing outstanding quality or superior merit; remarkably good
  • Faith: belief in God or the doctrines or teachings of religion
  • Freedom: the power to determine action without restraint
  • Fun: what provides amusement or enjoyment
  • Generosity: readiness or liberality in giving
  • Grace: favor or goodwill; unmerited divine assistance
  • Gratitude: the quality or feeling of being grateful or thankful
  • Growth: development from a simpler to a more complex stage
  • Harmony: when people are able to work together
  • Health: the condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit
  • Honesty: uprightness and fairness; truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness
  • Honor: high respect, as for worth, merit, or rank
  • Humility: freedom from pride or arrogance
  • Imagination: creative ability; ability to face and resolve difficulties; resourcefulness
  • Independence: freedom from the control, influence, support, or aid of others
  • Innovation: the introduction of something new
  • Integrity: firm adherence to a moral code and ethical principles; honesty
  • Intelligence: capacity for learning, reasoning, and understanding; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.
  • Justice: righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness
  • Kindness: having, showing, or proceeding from benevolence; indulgent, considerate, or helpful; humane
  • Learning: knowledge or skill acquired by instruction or study
  • Love: strong affection for another
  • Loyalty: faithfulness to commitments or obligations
  • Optimism: an inclination to believe the most favorable in actions and events
  • Passion: intense, driving, or conviction
  • Perseverance: to achieve something despite difficulties or failure
  • Power: ability to act or produce an effect; authority
  • Professionalism: the conduct, behavior, and attitude of someone in a work or business environment
  • Prosperity: a successful, flourishing, or thriving condition, especially in financial respects; good fortune
  • Purpose: the reason why something exists or is done, made, used, etc.
  • Quality: character with respect to fineness or degree of excellence
  • Recognition: special notice or attention; the acknowledgment of achievement, service, merit, etc.
  • Relationships: a connection, association, or involvement with those you care about
  • Respect: high regard; proper acceptance or courtesy; acknowledgment
  • Responsibility: the state being answerable or accountable for something within one’s power, control, or management
  • Risk Taking: the willingness to embrace challenges that may be hazardous
  • Security: freedom from fear and anxiety
  • Service: contribution to the welfare of others
  • Spontaneity: arising from a natural impulse or tendency; unplanned
  • Stability: steadfastness; constancy, as of character or purpose
  • Success: the accomplishment of one’s goals; the attainment of wealth, position, or honors
  • Teamwork: work done by several associates with each doing their part
  • Tolerance: a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions, beliefs, and practices that differ from one’s own
  • Tradition: an inherited or customary pattern of thought, behavior, or action
  • Trust: reliance on the integrity, strength, ability of a person or thing; confidence
  • Wisdom: knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; discernment, or insight

If something you think is important isn’t here, add your own.

Step 2: Identify Your Top 3 Core Values (3 minutes)

From your 7 selected values, rank them in order of importance. Your top 3 become your core values - the principles that will guide your decisions about your studies and career.

For each of your top 3, write one sentence explaining why this value is important to you and how it should influence your choices and goals.

Step 3: Career Alignment Check (5 minutes)

Think about potential career paths in psychology (clinical, research, education, business, etc.) or other fields that interest you.

For each career direction you’re considering, ask:

  • Does this path align with my core values?
  • Which of my values would be fulfilled by this work?
  • What values might be compromised?

### Step 4: Action Planning (2 minutes)

Based on your values and career interests, identify:

  • One thing you’re currently doing that aligns with your values and career goals (continue doing)
  • One new action you could take this week to move closer to your goals (start doing)
  • One activity or habit you should stop because it doesn’t serve your values or goals (you’ll stop doing it!)

Recording your thinking

Create a voice note (2-3 minutes), or a short piece of writing reflecting. Include:

  1. Your top 3 core values, and why they matter to you.
  2. How this exercise has clarified (or changed) your thinking about career planning.
  3. The one new action you plan to take this week.

Then, upload your voice note or text. Psybot will listen and provide feedback on the clarity of your values-career connections and the practicality of your action plan.

Show Psybot your work here