
How To Get Motivated Using Core Values
I probably do the values exercise with about 95% of my clients and as a rule, they love it. However, they’ve usually paid hundreds of dollars for life coaching and as such they are heavily invested in and committed to the idea of self development and improving their life.
Getting that kind of buy-in from the average blog reader exposed to “7 Guaranteed, Killer Ways To be Happy For Every Second of Your Entire Life Even When A Doctor Is Shoving His Gloved Hand Up Your Arse” kind of posts is a tad trickier.
Now I’m pretty sure you’re not one of those instant gratification type people, but if you really want to know the potentially huge payback that knowing your values can offer before you commit to it, scroll to the bottom and read on from: How Can My Values Motivate Me?
Then if you ‘re pumped to realize things don’t have to stay as they are (unless you want them to that is) you can schedule an hour out of your busy calendar and start from scratch by reading “What Are Values?” and then ‘What Are My Values?’
Presuming you have read parts 1 and 2 of this series you will now have two sheets like this one, with 8 core values on the one and 8 anti-values on the other.
Rather than explain in writing how to use the matrix, in a moment I want you to check out a demo I produced for the lovely people that bought How To Be Rich and Happy.
I want you to move through the process quickly and tap into your unconscious mind. If you’re taking more than a second or two to record your answer you’re slipping into an analytical mindset and quite probably thinking what your answers should be, rather than what they are.
Now go and watch the video, don’t tell John I gave you our highly secret squirrel link and I’ll be waiting for you when you get back with your newly formed list of values.
Ok, so you have done that, haven’t you? I’m trusting you, and if you haven’t I will feel compelled to slaughter the cutest bunny rabbit I can find and drink it’s sweet warm blood as punishment. So don’t say I haven’t warned you.
The first question is, are you surprised by your list?
That may seem a weird question, after all they’re your values and you ordered them, so why on earth would you be surprised by them?
The honest answer is, I have no idea. But what I do know is that at least half the people I do this exercise with are indeed surprised to some extent.
I frequently hear comments such as, “Wow I never expected ‘X’ value to be so high” or “I really thought ‘Y’ value was more important to me than that.”
The process you used to order them was very basic, but like a lot of basic things, very effective. By comparing them head to head you remove the risk of getting too analytical and it is likely to be way more accurate than you staring at the entire list and trying to sort it out en masse.
Having said that, the chances that you’ve nailed your top 8 values in exactly the right order first time are slim. Although you should be very close and certainly close enough to give you a better understanding of yourself and what’s most important to you.
As you look at the list, does it feel right? Is there anything you think may be missing?
If you come up with a word that you suspect should be on your list simply compare it with whatever is at #8 and ask yourself if it’s more important. If it is do the same thing with #7 and keep working your way up the list until you find its slot.
NOTE: Don’t worry if you have values that score the same. If there are two that score the same you can split them by doing a head-to-head. If there are 3 or even 4, just leave them for the time being or do the process again. It simply means they are incredibly close together and it’s not a problem.
How Can My Core Values Motivate Me?
We’re really into the meat of this now. Yes it’s taken a while and I’m thankful you’ve stuck with me, but this is where you get the payback for your dedication to do stuff most people can’t be bothered with.
I said in the first post that I was going to explain what value conflicts are and to do so I have filmed two short videos.
In the first one I explain what an external value conflict is and why Enron set a great example for the purposes of understanding this.
In the second one I explain what the trickier to spot internal value conflict is and why they can cause you to get stuck with decision making.
So off you got to watch those and I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.
If you have done that you are now part of a tiny group of people wandering around this planet who actually know the hierarchy of their values. You also have a clearer idea of why and just as importantly importantly where, there maybe sticking points in your life.
That in and of itself it’s well worth having, but as crap Irish comedian Jimmy Cricket used to say, there’s more.
There is a good chance you found one side of the process easier to do than the other. Maybe you skated through the anti-values, but got bogged down with the core values or vice versa?
This is going to give you an indication as to whether you are motivated by moving towards things you want, or away from things you don’t want and this is incredibly useful.
If that isn’t the case, no worries at all because everything is good in this process.
I’m sure you know of the NLP pain and pleasure principle that suggests every human behavior is either designed to move away from pain or toward pleasure, right?
Well very similar to that theory is the belief that people are primarily motivated by moving toward something they want or away from something they don’t want.
The values process is a brilliant indication of which type you may be as the side that was easier for you points to where your motivation lies.
If both sides of the equation were equally easy (or difficult) it may well be you are sat closer to the middle and your motivation will vary depending on the task at hand.
Law of attraction devotees may want to look away now because you’re going to be apoplectic with what I’m about to say.
If you’re a strongly away from person, how useful do you think it is going to be if you set goals that promise you untold love, glory and riches months or even years down the road?
Probably not very.
No mater how much you think of your overflowing bank balance or stare at your vision board with it’s beautiful house and shiny new car on it, it’s not going to inspire you other than at a very superficial level.
I know this is going very much against conventional wisdom, but you’d much better served to think about what you don’t want.
A pink slip from a previous job, a notice of intent to disconnect your electricity or a letter from a potential book publisher telling you, “Thanks, but no thanks” is much more likely to get you stoked.
Similarly, if you’re a strongly toward person and you want to quit smoking, then forget about looking at photos of diseased lungs and imagining your untimely death. Instead focus on a brilliant future playing with your grandkids or running a marathon at age 70.
I’m not saying if you tend to be an away from person that you’ll never be motivated toward things or vice versa because that isn’t true.
As a sales person I was never motivated by big bonuses. That was until I was within touching distance of a monster pay out. Then I turned into a drooling whirling dervish of sales related activity.
Have you noticed I haven’t used the word procrastination, even though I said in Part 1 I was going to offer help with that?
That’s because if you’re highly motivated you’re massively less likely to procrastinate than if you’re demotivated or feeling stuck. It can still happen, but we’re playing percentages here.
I know I’m always offering cop outs caveats and I’m going to end with yet another one.
This whole process is not an exact science.
I know it’s stating the obvious, but values are incredibly personal and I’m offering you generalizations because that’s all I can do without you hiring me as your life coach and us working together personally.
I could have easily write an entire book on values and I have left lots of stuff out that I either think you will know, or don’t need to know to make this work.
Having said that, if you have any questions whatsoever, drop them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them.
Photo: ‘Core Values’ Courtesy of Howard Lake
I’d also love to hear any feedback on the results you get or if you think there are any areas you can help fine tine the process for others.
Great post Tim. The videos were ace. Thanks for sharing them.
Value conflicts are something I have some personal experience of and continue to work with. Your posts as well as How to be Rich and Happy have really helped me to identify them.
As we say in the UK.
Ta me duck!
Ooh, yes, and another question:
Some part of me wants to include ‘grief’ on my values list, which makes absolutely no sense to me. Seems more like an antivalue to me! Still, it keeps insisting.
Can these values things be temporary? Like ‘you need to acknowledge there’s something in your life to grieve,’ not ‘you must focus your life to include AS MUCH GRIEF as possible, muhahahaa!’ Or even ‘there’s always something to grieve, don’t stuff that down?’
*confused*
Which leads me to an excellent opportunity to gush about how much I love your posts. :p
This is another great post from you. Thanks! I’d like to get over my list of values so I could motivate myself and do exactly what needs to be done.
Excellent series! Learned a lot already, despite some questions I still have. Mostly served to hammer home why my job is absolutely terrible for me. Knew that already, but the more clarity the better it is and the worse it feels. Big issue of course – now what? I guess here is where you point to your coaching packages. ;)
Some questions:
– When doing the value elicitation form, I get the same score for different values. For example a score of 4 for 2 values. Do you then go in and compare the two of them side by side? I tried to follow my intuition in deciding, and my intuition is apparently not THAT good at avoiding circular logic.
– How necessary is it to be accurate in your description of the values? I get that money is a tool, not a value, but can it be the other way around? That when I focus on X and Y, Z follows automatically so I don’t have to focus on it? And, in that case, are X and Y the tools and Z the value or are X and Y the values?
– Am I seriously overthinking this? :p
Thanks again, great series.
@ Chris – If you use that title I’ll sue you ass off as I have trademarked it ;-) Remarkably the domain name is still available!
@ Sid – I think that’s a fair point. As long as motivation isn’t based in revenge or greed then what gets us to act is usually a good thing.
@ SF – Yes it definitely does make sense, although it may require a book! When I work with clients after the first intake session, the 2nd session is values (usually) and then all the other work is based on what stems from that.
I’ll give it some thought, but also say this. Most people once they know their values can see the areas where they need to make changes to live in alignment with them.
The whole family thing is a whole different ball game and I’m not sure if being in the middle of a 3 week stint with the in-laws staying I know the answer to that.
I was reminded of something Jack Kornfield the Buddhist teacher once said yesterday. “If you think you’re enlightened, go and stay with family for a few days”
@ Cath – They do indeed and you’re welcome.
@ Carl – You’re right about the unconscious thing. I made a decision to tell people to bat through quickly rather than having to right another 1,000 words explaining the resoning behind it.
Of course that is covered off in more depth in How To Be Rich and Happy as all this is. And it’s for a great cause. Wa-hey!
@ Chris – Maybe throw in an acnhor or two as well and you’re good to go!
@ Rosalind – Maybe the real value is integrity and not honesty? That may not be the case, but I do think that it’s possible to demonstrate integrity whilst telling lies. In your case what you learned to do had the best intentions and imho that made it a positive thing even if it didn’t quite feel right at the time. Thanks for sharing.
Morning … I recently did a similar exercise attempting to nail down my top five Core Values. I identified one of them as ‘honesty’ and for some reason this one got me thinking. IF ‘honesty’ is one of my BIG FIVE (yes I’m South African and can identify with this!) then why do I tell ‘white lies’ and on top of it feel so guilty when I do. I know there are all sorts of obvious reasons, like, not wanting to hurt a friend’s feelings etc BUT I really wanted to understand why this troubled me so.
After spending a lot of time searching deep down and re-visiting my ‘negative/self-defeating beliefs’ it all came to me!
I had a very cruel, sadistic, mean-spirited father who promised that we’d NOT get a thrashing IF we told the truth! Well, the truth never did sound plausible enough and we’d end up getting a thrashing anyhow UNTIL … we (us 5 children) learned to manipulate the ‘truth’ in such a manner that he believed this as the ‘truth’ and so we avoided getting the punishment … too often this ‘telling of truth’ meant that one of the other siblings was used as the scapegoat and THEY ended up getting the thrashing which NONE of us deserved.
Has this change ‘honesty’ as being one of my ‘values’? Not at all, but I am now aware of the internal tug-of-war and am becoming far better at being honest in an ‘honest’ way!!!
Thanks for a superb series about values Tim, you made a previously confusing subject very clear to me.
Now I have my lists I can motivate myself to motivate myself, if you know what I mean…
Cheers,
Chris
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Dude
As much as I begrudge giving you even the faintest hint of praise, the Values work we did together (yep – as one of the “committed” people actually paying to access the contents of your brain) was truly awesome.
I actually refer to my list of values (and anti values) when I need to make any kind of “big” decision.
I’m just kind of pissed that 3 months later you’re giving it away for free ;)
Jokes aside people, Timothy here is very good at extracting your values – and knowing them does make a big difference (for me at least)
One good point in this article – which I don’t think Tim pointed enough focus to – is that you have to be sure you are answering UNconsciously.
The benefit of doing values work with Tim (or any other shiny headed Northern life coach) is that he has an uncanny knack of knowing when you are giving BS answers that you think you SHOULD give.
Having BS values is about as useful as having a bottle of sun tan lotion living in London – i.e. not very.
You must be sure you’re answering what your “heart” says, and not your media / socially conditioned mind.
Aside from that minor point, very good article squire!
Values rock! Some of the most powerful tools for understanding and changing yourself that I’ve found. Thanks for putting this comprehensive post series together.
Cath
You tweeted “What do you do when you realize you’ve pretty much laid it all out there? Go back to the beginning and start again maybe?”
Great posts, I get it and wasn’t surprised, or maybe I was a bit, that my values jumped off the page at me and were quickly put into order of importance.
I think, sometimes it’s a lot easier send than done to change aspects of your life when others in your family and support network don’t share the same values. I meant in my twitter reply, when your clients know what their values are, is what changes in their life do and can they make to accomodate their values?
How have they used knowing what their values are to change aspects of their career, relationships and self perception? How have your clients put it into practice? How do you help them plan their path to match their values?
As you said the exercise is a ranking tool – how do I use the results? If I want freedom, honesty, creativity and growth, how do I know what aspects of my life to change to get them and how will I know when I have them?
Hope that makes more sense :)
“This is going to give you an indication as to whether you are motivated by moving towards things you want, or away from things you don’t want.”
Hey Tim, I think you’re spot on here. I think in certain cases, this motivation doesn’t just come from what we “don’t want” – it’s really what we fear will happen without action.
At least, that’s part of the way I motivate myself when I’m feeling lazy and apathetic. Some days I wake up and I just don’t feel like working towards my goals, because I think well there’s always tomorrow, or I can do it later. I have to shake my reality a little bit and remind myself no, there isn’t always tomorrow – there’s a chance that if I don’t act right now that I won’t reach my goals and my prior efforts will have been for nothing.
A bit dramatic? Yes, but it helps to kick start my motivation ;)
“7 Guaranteed, Killer Ways To be Happy For Every Second of Your Entire Life Even When A Doctor Is Shoving His Gloved Hand Up Your Arse”
Oh man, I’m going to have to use that as a post title sometime!
It’s been interesting reading your blog at the same time as reading up on NLP – thanks for helping me take it in.