Values compass

For several years, an Australian woman named Bronnie Ware worked in palliative care, looking after people in the last weeks of their lives. She listened as they looked back, and in 2009 she wrote about the regrets she heard most often.

The most common, she said, was this: "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me." Her post spread around the world, perhaps because so many readers recognised the risk in their own lives.

In ACT, values are the qualities you want your life to stand for: being caring, honest, curious, brave. They work less like destinations and more like a compass direction. You never arrive at "being a loving parent", but you can always take a step that way.

Worry and values are closely linked. We worry about the things we care about: anxiety about a friendship usually means the friendship matters. So underneath a worry there's often a value worth finding.

Values are yours to choose. They aren't rules or "shoulds", and they don't depend on how anyone else responds.

• Aristotle

  For Aristotle, virtues like courage and generosity aren't finish lines but qualities you practise by acting on them.

• Existentialism

  Heidegger asked whether we live by our own standards or by the anonymous voice of "what one does".

Think of something you've been worrying about.

Your answers stay in this page and aren't saved or sent anywhere.

Which of these is a value, in ACT's sense?