VALUES & BELIEFS

“Talk does not cook rice” - Chinese Proverb

VALUES

Values are those things that we move toward or away from. They either attract us or repel
us. They are what we are willing to invest time, energy and resources to achieve or avoid.

Values are largely unconscious, and at the deepest level they drive a person's true purpose
as a human being. Values govern ALL human behaviour. First, they provide the push or the
kinaesthetic drive as prior motivation for our actions. Second, they serve as after the fact
evaluation criteria, or judgment about our actions. Values are the way we judge good and
bad, right and wrong, appropriateness and inappropriateness.

HIGHLY VALUED CRITERIA

Highly Valued Criteria are also values. They are
our major, most important values around which
we organise beliefs. They are also expressed by
nominalisations such as satisfaction, security,
enjoyment, challenge, accomplishment and
honesty.

BELIEFS
Beliefs are hooked, or related, to values. Every
individual belief you have is "hooked" or linked to
a certain value that is probably unconscious.
Beliefs are more conscious than values, and are
generalisations about our actions, about what
we are doing or about what we need to do. They
are statement about our internal representations
- about how we believe the world is round.

BELIEF SYSTEMS

A belief system is a cluster of beliefs arranged

around a highly valued criterion. Imagine a tree
where each major limb holds a value, and
around each value are a number of smaller
branches that are beliefs. The entire system of branches or beliefs we will call a belief system.
CORE BELIEFS AND VALUES
Core beliefs and values have to do with our identity and are often created unconsciously
in as simple a way as watching our parents interact before we were age 8. These core
beliefs and values are the most pervasive. The ones that impact us the most are the ones
that are outside our awareness. Core beliefs and values are the most unconscious of the
values and probably the most important in terms of defining our personality. So core values
are going to be the kinds of values that serve as the basis for our personality. Core beliefs
and values are like Highly Valued

Criteria, but what differentiates them is that the core beliefs and values are the most
unconscious parts of our identity.

HIERARCHIES
In our minds, we unconsciously arrange our values in hierarchies. As we evaluate our
actions, the more important values are usually searched for first. After the more important
values are found and satisfied, then the next most important ones become important.

ATTITUDES
Attitudes are based on belief systems. Attitudes rest on clusters of belief systems relating to
a certain subject, so they are formed by clusters of beliefs and values. An attitude,
therefore, is the sum total of our beliefs and values on a certain subject.

ELICITING YOUR VALUES

Exploring what moves you?

Occasionally we are too busy living to notice what is really important in our lives - our values.
Values are largely unconscious, and at the deepest level they drive a person's true purpose.
Values drive all human behaviour. First, they provide the kinaesthetic drive as prior
motivation for our actions and, second, they serve as the evaluation criteria about our
actions.

Values are about what is important to us and what moves us to acquire skills and behave
in various ways. Values and core beliefs are closely linked. Using questions such as "What is
important to you about X?", we can elicit a person's major values in any specific context.
The following process will tell you how we know that one thing is more important to us than
another.
Just imagine what you could achieve when you have aligned your values with your
purpose, identity, beliefs, capabilities and behaviour.

VALUES LIST

STEPS A
B
Context: Ask the explorer for a major C
context (X) to explore their values - for D
E
Example:- work, career, relationships,
family, leisure, or simply life itself.
F
G
1. What is important? H
I
Ask the explorer J

"What is important about X?" Rank: Then ask the explorer to rank
these values from most important to
and then PACE.PACE.LEAD. (Rapport) least important.

"So A is important. What else is important

about X?"
HIERARCHY OF VALUES

Then keep asking. c0re

1
“"So A, B, … are important. What else is 2
important about X?" 3
4
until you have 8 to 10 expressions written
5
down in the explorer’s own words.
6
2. Finally ask 7
8
“What’s Really Important about work? 9
to elicit a core value 10

To help the explorer rank value X against

value Y, you can ask –

"If you were able to have X but not Y, or Y

but not X, which would you choose?"

This process will enable you to rank the

values in order of importance.
 OVERCOME BARRIERS
To fly, we have to have resistance. MAYA LIN

What stopping me achieving my goals? The biggest obstacles to achieving

our goals are within ourselves. To set out for your goals with confidence that
you will achieve them, you first need to let go of any limiting beliefs and clear
out any blocks within yourself.

There is an old story about a patient who was being treated by a psychiatrist.
The patient wouldn't eat or take care of himself, claiming that he was a
corpse. The psychiatrist spent many hours arguing with the patient trying to
convince him he wasn't a corpse.

Finally the psychiatrist asked the patient if corpses bled. The patient replied,
“Of course corpses don't bleed, all of their body functions have stopped.” The
psychiatrist then convinced the patient to try an experiment. The psychiatrist
would carefully prick the patient with a pin and they would see if he started
to bleed. The patient agreed. After all, he was a corpse. The psychiatrist
gently pricked the patient's skin with a needle and, sure enough, he began to
bleed. With a look of shock and amazement the patient gasped, "I'll be
darned...corpses DO bleed!"
Our beliefs are a very powerful force in our behavior. It is common wisdom
that if someone really believes he can do something he will do it, and if he
believes something is impossible no amount of effort will convince him that it
can be accomplished.

What is unfortunate is that many sick people, such as those with cancer or
heart disease, will often present their doctors and friends with the same belief
mentioned in the story above. Beliefs like "It's too late now;" "There's nothing I
can do anyway;" "I'm a victim...My number came up;" can often limit the full
resources of the patient. Our beliefs about ourselves and what is possible in
the world around us greatly impact our day-to-day effectiveness. All of us
have beliefs that serve as resources as well as beliefs that limit us.

The power of beliefs was demonstrated in an enlightening study in which a

group of children who were tested to have average intelligence was divided
at random into two equal groups. One of the groups was assigned to a
teacher who was told that the children were "gifted." The other group was
given to a teacher who was told that the children were "slow learners."

A year later the two groups were retested for intelligence. Not surprisingly, the
majority of the group that was arbitrarily identified as "gifted" scored higher
than they had previously, while the majority of the group that was labeled
"slow" scored lower! The teacher's beliefs about the students affected their
ability to learn.

In another study, 100 cancer "survivors" (patients who had reversed their
symptoms for over 10 years) were interviewed about what they had done to
achieve success.
The interviews showed that no one treatment method stood out as being
more effective than any other. Some had taken the standard medical
treatment of chemotherapy and/or radiation, some had used a nutritional
approach, others had followed a spiritual path, while others concentrated on
a psychological approach and some did nothing at all. The only thing that
was characteristic of the entire group was that they all believed that the
approach they took would work.

Certainly, these examples seem to demonstrate

that our beliefs can shape, effect or even
determine our degree of intelligence, health,
relationships, creativity, even our degree of
happiness and personal success. Yet, if indeed our
beliefs are so powerful a force in our lives, how do
we get control of them so they don't control us?
Many of our beliefs were installed in us as children
by parents, teachers, social upbringing and the
media before we were aware of their impact or
able to have a choice about them. Is it possible to
restructure, unlearn or change old beliefs that may
be limiting us and imprint new ones that can
expand our potential beyond what we currently
imagine? If so, how do we do it?

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) provides perhaps the most powerful and

exciting model of the mind and set of behavioral tools in existence. Through
the processes of NLP, beliefs and belief strategies may be explicitly mapped
and directed.

The three most common areas of limiting beliefs center around issues of
hopelessness, helplessness and worthlessness. These three areas of belief can
exert a great deal of influence with respect to a person’s mental and physical
health.

Hopelessness occurs when someone does not believe a particular desired

goal is even possible. It is characterized by a sense that, “No matter what I do
it won't make a difference. What I want is not possible to get. It's out of my
control. I'm a victim.”

Helplessness occurs when, even though he or she believes that the outcome
exists and is possible to achieve, a person does not believe that he or she is
capable of attaining it. It produces a sense that, “It's possible for others to
achieve this goal but not for me. I'm not good enough or capable enough to
accomplish it.”
Worthlessness occurs when, even though a person may believe that the
desired goal is possible and that he or she even has the capability to
accomplish it, that individual believes that he or she doesn't deserve to get
what he/she wants. It is often characterized by a sense that, “I am a fake. I
don't belong. I don't deserve to be happy or healthy. There is something
basically and fundamentally wrong with me as a person and I deserve the
pain and suffering that I am experiencing.”