Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Personal Values

Have you visited yours lately?

This is a topic dear to my heart, and a discussion over at nlptalk-reserve led me to thinking about this once more.

Here's my position.

Contemplating our deepest values and identifying them
is something I have found to be useful, but I think is
not a particularly common occupation.

NLP is very useful in allowing us to do so, and if we
use the tools that it provides us in cleaning up our
thinking/speaking habits, then we have a very good way to
work through our beliefs and choose which ones really
merit holding, and which are not. Which ones are what we'd
choose now, not just ones left over from when we were children
and knew no different. Some beliefs from our childhood remain
valid. Some may not. Knowing the difference, right now in
the current context is a wonderful thing to know about ourselves.
Understanding where those beliefs came from, all adds to us knowing
ourselves, and in an honest way, and allows us to bit by bit uncover
the core values that are at the foundation of our personal integrity.

That's a good start at eliminating any incongruency between our
thoughts and our actions. That is very much of value to me.

How do we share our values? I think we share them - whether we know it
or not - by our actions and interactions.

"You are not your behaviour"... but it is very helpful when your
behaviour actually is consistent with who you would be.

Uncovering these values, is a tricky proposition, but to my mind, it
is an area that needs very clear boundaries and I'm not sure that it
is the place for "NLP manipulation" by someone other.

But maybe it is fair game for that. What do you think?



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Lindy Asimus
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great reminder to revisit your values, or write them down if you haven't.

One of the primary things that keep people from achieving their goals is that they set goals that are out of line with their personal values.

I was writing about that very topic yesterday. They may think the goals is something they really want, but deep inside if it is out of alignment the conflict will often keep them from achieving the goal in the first place. Or, if they do achieve the goal it can be full of empty satisfaction.

lindyasimus said...

I agree Leisa.

And while it seems like a simple thing to do ... it can be quite tricky to get down to what are our essential core Values.

Worth getting some help with that sometimes.

Thanks for adding to the conversation.