Andreas Meistad

I have worked as a therapist for over a decade, trained in cognitive behavioral therapy. Most of my clinical work centers on anxiety, sleep difficulties, and the patterns that keep people stuck.

Over the years, one thing kept coming up. Clients would reach a point in therapy where something clicked, and they would say some version of: "Why doesn't everyone know this? This should be common knowledge."

They were usually talking about values. Not values as a list of nice-sounding words, but values as a practical compass. The realization that you can stop waiting to feel ready, stop fighting your own thoughts, and start moving toward what actually matters to you, even when it feels hard.

Why I started Values.guide

Therapy is powerful, but it is also limited. It reaches one person at a time, in a room, at a price not everyone can pay. I kept thinking about all the people who would never sit across from a therapist but who could still benefit from this one core idea: that clarifying your values changes how you relate to discomfort, decisions, and daily life.

Values.guide is my attempt to make that accessible. It is a free tool that helps people discover their personal values using reflective questions and AI, grounded in acceptance and commitment therapy principles.

What I believe

Most people do not need more coping strategies. They need a clearer sense of direction. When you know what matters to you, the difficult feelings do not disappear, but they stop running the show. You can feel anxious and still show up. You can feel uncertain and still choose.

That shift, from controlling how you feel to choosing how you act, is at the heart of everything I write about here.