My values and beliefs are the source of success and failure in my life, they are the driving force behind me.
Values are my labels for different levels of pain and pleasure. I have learned to value emotions at different levels of intensity. My values are emotional states that, based on my life experiences, I believe are most important for me to experience (move toward) or avoid (move away from). The moving toward values (pleasure) are emotions like love, happiness, success, security adventure etc. These are also my ends values.
It is important to me to be clear about the difference between means values (money, car etc) which are vehicles or instruments and ends values which drive all of my behaviour as a human being. For example, a car may be important to me because in my mind it equals freedom, convenience and power. Money may be important to me because in my mind it equals security, control and freedom.
The secret in life is to know what I am really after, my ends values. This distinction will give me my personal power.
From Day 8 lesson, what I focus on is guided by my values. All decision making is nothing but value clarification. If I know what I value most, what it is I am truly want most out of life, then I will find I can make decisions much more effectively and quickly.
Where did my values come from? From my experiance, my parents, marketing, based on pain and pleasure I have experianced in my past.
I must become aware of conflicting values, these are pairs of values that pull me apart.
When I change my values I change my destiny.
A belief is a feeling of certainty about the meaning of something. A belief determines whether or not I feel like I am meeting my values. My beliefs can either limit or liberate me.
There are 2 basic kinds of beliefs:
- Global. These are my generalisations. Usually preceded by: Life is…. People are…. I am….
- Rules. These are my conditional ideas. Usually preceded by If this …, then that…
My mind evaluates future experiances by looking at what is important to me, this makes my values my guides and my target. How I know I have met my target is through my beliefs.
To help me discover my beliefs I need to ask myself, How do I know?
I must learn to setup my beliefs to make it easy to win and feel alive. To create beliefs that support me.
“We cant always control the wind, but we can control our sails.”
My beliefs also determine which questions I am willing to ask myself and the questions I habitually ask.
Assignment
- What is most important to me in my …. (Life, work etc)? If means values come up, I need to ask my self: If I had …. what would it ultimately give me? How would it make me feel? These feelings are the true driving force in my life, my moving toward values.
- Put these values in order of importance.
- Make a list of all the negative feelings, emotions I would do anything to avoid. Discovering what I want to avoid will help me understand more about my drive. I am not just driven by what I want, I am also driven to avoid these feelings I link the most pain to, my moving away from values (What are some of the feelings I have had I want to avoid).
- Put these in order of importance.
- What has happened for me to feel each of these emotions from steps 2 & 4? eg What does success mean to me? How do I know I am successful? A powerful answer could be that each day above ground means that I am successful. It is important to understand the rules I have for feeling bad, because I often make it hard to feel good and too easy to feel bad.
- What rules am I willing to change to improve my life?