Valued Living Questionnaire (VLQ): what it is and how it works

The Valued Living Questionnaire is an ACT research measure: rate each life domain for importance and for consistency, and the gap shows where to focus.

Why it works

A discrepancy between stated values and lived behavior is a form of psychological inconsistency that generates low-level distress without a clear target. The valued living audit makes the gap explicit and measurable, which (a) motivates action because the cost of inaction is visible and (b) narrows the focus to high-importance, low-consistency values rather than trying to improve everything at once. The two-rating structure is what produces the signal. Importance alone tells you what you would endorse in the abstract, and consistency alone tells you what you have been doing without saying whether it matters; only the difference identifies a domain that is both genuinely important to you and currently being neglected. That is also why the domains are rated separately rather than ranked — ranking forces a comparison between values, while the point is to locate where your own behaviour has drifted from your own stated commitments. Note what this is and is not: in ACT the VLQ is a measure used to orient and track therapy, not an intervention in itself. Completing it produces information, and any change comes from the committed action that follows.

How to do it

1. List your 5–8 most important life domains (work, relationships, health, creativity, etc.).
2. For each, rate: "How important is this to me?" (1–10) and "How consistently am I living this?" (1–10).
3. Compute the gap: importance minus consistency. Higher gaps = highest priority areas.
4. Choose the one highest-gap domain for your committed action this week.

Evidence

The Valued Living Questionnaire (VLQ) is a psychometrically validated ACT measure developed by Wilson and colleagues; higher valued living scores are associated with better psychological wellbeing in research samples. (observational)

The VLQ is a validated research tool, not a clinical intervention; using it as a self-coaching audit is an application of the measure rather than a trialed intervention.

Sources

• Wilson et al. (2010), the Valued Living Questionnaire, Psychological Assessment

Common mistake

Treating all high-gap domains as equally urgent and trying to close multiple gaps at once, which dilutes effort and makes progress invisible — one domain at a time is the ACT approach.