By: Shantanu Das Sharma, Sr. Associate Editor, ICN Group
Quick recap of what we have covered in Part 33
Values Are Your Core Driving Force
How We Behave Like Amoebas!
Prioritizing Our ‘Towards Values’ and Our ‘Away-From Values’
Understand How These Values Drive You
Why Our Life is like a Space Shuttle
3 Top Trainers – Each Driven by a Different Value
Discovering Your ‘Towards Values’
So let’s find out what are your towards values. What are the positive emotional states that guide your every decision and action? You do so by asking yourself any one of these three questions.
Question 1
What is most important to me in life?
Personal Happiness? Family? Health? Love? Freedom? Security? Fun? Fame? Recognition? Remember: you should be discovering what values (emotional states) you hold dear and not physical objects. If you say ‘my car’, then ask what does your car give you? Is it Convenience? Power? Prestige? Write these down as your towards values.
Or
Question 2
What positive emotional states would I try the most to attain?
You could also ask yourself this question to elicit your values.
Or
Question 3
Think of the last time you were very motivated to do something. What positive emotional states were you moving towards?
For example, suppose you were once very motivated to enter a speech competition or a talent quest. Ask yourself, ‘What emotional states were you trying to attain?’ Was it the satisfaction that comes with Fame? Accomplishment? Personal growth or Satisfaction? Again, these would be an indication of your values.
So, if you are ready, I want you to grab a pen and spend at least 10 minutes to really reflect on these three questions. Write down your top seven towards values below.
My Towards Values
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Means Values and Ends Values
In eliciting your towards values, you must be aware of the difference between ‘means values’ and ‘ends values’. Ends values are emotional states we ultimately want; like happiness, love, power and freedom. Means values are values that lead us to ends values. A good example is money. Money is definitely an emotional subject for most people and it definitely drives them to take action. However, different people are driven by money for different reasons.
Money is a means value because we want money for what we think money will give us. It is a means to an end. Some people think that money will bring them power, prestige and freedom. So power, prestige and freedom are really the ends values they are after. It is important to find out what you are really after. Some people keep chasing money thinking that it would bring them happiness and freedom. In the end, they may have all the money they want but still feel restricted and unhappy. Family is also a means values. If family is important to you then ask, ‘What does family give you?’ Family could bring you love, security, sense of pride, comfort, companionship, fulfillment, purpose etc… Take some time to examine your towards values again and see if it would be useful to find out what your ends values really are. Do it now.
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Money ➤ |
Freedom
Security Power Prestige |
Ranking Your ‘Towards Values’
The next step in clarifying your towards values is to rank them in order of importance. The way you rank them or value them in your mind will determine how you evaluate decisions in your life. For example, is health more important or money? Is freedom more important or security? Is success more important or love? The way to begin ranking your values is to ask yourself, ‘Of all these values, if I could only have one, what would it be?’
For example, of all the values below, if you find that love is most important to you, then Love would be ranked number one. Look at the remaining values and ask the same question. ‘If I could only have one value, what would it be?’ Repeat this process until you have ranked your towards values from number one to number seven.
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Towards Values
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1 Success 2 Happiness 3 Love 4 Freedom
5 Health 6 Security 7 Growth |
My Towards Values (Ranked)
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Remember that your towards values are only one side of the coin. We are also driven to make certain decisions because our brain wants us to avoid painful emotions. For example, you work hard because you want to avoid getting fired which leads you to poverty and humiliation. You may procrastinate in making cold calls because you want to avoid feeling ‘rejected’. So let’s find out what are your ‘away-from’ values.
Eliciting Your ‘Away-From’ Values
The way to elicit your ‘away-from’ values is to ask yourself either one of the two questions.
Question 1
What negative emotional states would I try the most to avoid? Is it Embarrassment? Loneliness? Rejection? Depression? Loss? Physical pain? Frustration? Guilt?
Or
Question 2 Think of the last time you were motivated to do something, what negative emotional states were you avoiding?
For example, it could be the time when you worked very hard on a project. What negative emotional states pushed you to get it done? It could have been fear of being reprimanded (humiliation, rejection) or fear of not doing a good job (failure). Grab your pen again and take ten minutes to do this. Write down your ‘away-from’ values in the space below. Be totally honest with yourself.
My Away-From Values
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Ranking Your Away-From Values
Now, rank your ‘away-from’ values from one to seven. Ask yourself, ‘Of all these values, which would I try the most to avoid?’ If rejection is the one emotion that you fear the most, then it will be your number one away-from value. Looking at the remaining values, ask the same question until you have ranked them all.
Away-From Values (Ranked)
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Values Definition
Now, although two people may have the same values, they could still decide and behave very differently because they may have very different definitions of the same values. Values mean different things to different people. Success could mean something to one person and something completely different to another. It depends on what we have associated these emotions to in our nervous system. It is only when we find out how we truly define our values that it becomes very clear what our hot buttons are.
Is it possible that Madonna and Mother Theresa had the same number one ‘towards value’ in life? Quite Possibly. How could that be? They are totally different personalities with such radically different beliefs? This is because the way they define success is obviously very different.
For Madonna, success may mean touching millions of lives with her music. Although the late Mother Theresa may have valued success just as highly, her definition of success would have meant feeding 10 million children. As such, they made very different choices in their lives and produced very different results. And are both just as successful? Yes! By their own definitions.
Two Boys: Very Different Personalities
But the Same Values! In my work with children, I have always wondered why one student is so motivated to study and become the top student while another just wants to join gangs and beat up other kids. Could they have different values? I began to understand why when I was having a session with two boys, each a very different personality. Yet I found that both students had the same top towards value of ‘Importance’. At the same time, they both had a top away-from value of ‘rejection’. Well, then how could they behave so differently?
I discovered that the first boy had learnt to associate studying to feeling important. When he scored high grades, he received lots of praise and rewards from the school and his parents. This desire to continue feeling important drove him to excel in school. At the same time, his mind associated not studying to rejection. He felt that if he allowed his grades to slip, people would not admire him anymore and he would feel rejected.
As for the other boy, the associations he made to importance and rejection were totally reversed. He felt important being the leader of a gang with his friends looking up at him as the one who dares to defy authority. He felt important every time he bullied the kids around him. At the same time, this second boy associated the feeling of rejection to studying. Why? Because he would fail and feel rejected by his teachers. He was in a group culture where it was uncool to study and anyone who was a ‘nerd’ would be rejected by the group.
So we have to start analyzing what our brains link our values to. Since our minds will always make decisions to move us to our towards values and away from our away-from values.
Define Your Towards and Away-From Values
Now, I want you to be totally honest with yourself and really think about how you define the values that you have. Ask, ‘What must happen for me to feel __(Value)__?’ Define both your towards values as well as your away-from values. For example, let’s say that success is your top towards value. What must happen for you to be successful? Be as specific as you can! Must people tell you that you are successful? Must you earn Rs.100,000 a month? Must you drive a Ferrari? Now, how about ‘happiness’? What must happen for you to be happy? To some people, happiness is defined as, ‘Everything must go the way I expect’. What’s your definition? Write down your definition of your towards values now.
Towards Values Definition (What must happen)
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Similarly, look at your away-from values. If rejection is what you want to avoid the most, what must happen for you to feel rejected? Do you feel rejected the moment someone does not agree with your ideas? Is it when someone does not buy your product? How about failure? What must happen for you to feel like a failure? Do you feel like a failure when you don’t reach your goals? Write down your definition of your away-from values. Do it now!
Away-From Values Definition (What must happen)
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Analyze Your Values… They Reveal the Inner You
Great! You should now have your towards and away-from values, clearly ranked and defined. Here comes the most interesting part. I want you to put your values side by side and in front of you, and analyze them. Do your values explain why you have made certain decisions in the past? Do they explain why you behave consistently in a certain manner? If you have achieved some of your goals, do your values explain why? More importantly, if you have felt frustrated about not achieving certain results or goals, do your values also explain why? Do your values explain the decisions you made in your professional life? Your family? Your health? Your personal relationships? Take as much time as you need and write down some of your self-discoveries!
(I facilitate Thought Leaders, Change Makers; Professionals & Business Owners translate NLP concepts into actions to achieve and elicit personal excellence. I conduct NLP Lifestyle Coaching Certification programs for individuals, corporate and celebrity clients. In the next article, you will learn more about Values. And after that you will come to know in subsequent articles, how you can utilize concepts of NLP+ in all walks of your life to replicate the success blueprint of a winner mindset to win through life. So, stay tuned every Monday & Saturday and fasten your seat belt to ‘Enhance Your Lifestyle With NLP+’)
Shantanu Das Sharma, Creator of the concept NLP Lifestyle Coaching with NLP+ and Founder of Neuromind Leadership Academy is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author, NLP+ Lifestyle Master Trainer & Coach, Certified Social Panorama Consultant, Clean Language Facilitator & Strategic Interventionist. To explore about NLP+ Lifestyle Coaching you may visit http://shantanudassharma.com/nlp-lifestyle-coaching/
