Changing Your Values

As I mentioned in my last blog, I believe that all of the decisions you make can be explained by what your values are. Really, I should have said values and beliefs because they aren't necessarily the same thing, but they serve the same purpose and both govern your decisions. I also mentioned that there was a list of values that I thought were ones that every person should have. Here is that list of values and beliefs I mentioned (in no particular order):

• Heath
• Faith
• Persistance
• Integrity
• Courage
• Honesty
• Respectfulness
• Responsibility
• Self-Confidence
• Freedom
• Creativity
• Justice/Fairness
• Trust & Trustworthiness
• Intelligence & Life-Long Learning
• You have the ability to choose how you will react/respond to any situation.
• Hurting others is wrong.
• Help others when you can.
• Men and women are equals.
• Treat others as you would like to be treated.
• Be quick to forgive others.
• Don't judge a book by it's cover.
• Stealing is wrong.
• Loyalty
• Family
• Optimism
• Wisdom

Now I have to say that I'm sure I haven't covered every single good value or belief that is worth having, but each value and belief on this list is one that you need to have in order to stay on the road to success.

I've already explained one way of figuring out what your values are - just by asking yourself why you do something or another over and over until you get to the reason, which will always be because it lines up with a value or belief you have on the list in your mind. But how can you add or remove values from your list, or change the order of them?

Changing the order of the values that you already have on your list is pretty simple. First, write each one down on a notecard or post-it note. Then grab two of them and ask yourself "which one is more important to me?" Whichever one is more important, put down and put the other one down to the right of it. Then pick up another one and compare that to the left-most one. If it is more important, put that one down as you most left-most one, and if not then ask the same question about that one and the next one to the right, and place it down according to what you decide. Keep doing this with every card or post-it until you have placed them all down in order of importance as you see them from left to right. Then you will know what order of importance you hold each value in comparison to the others.

The next step is to decide if that order of importance is the best order of importance. If you look at one of them and decide that integrity should be more important than optimism for example, but you have optimism as a higher level of importance than optimism then this is how you can change that. Get a sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle of the page and write optimism at the top of one side and integrity at the top of the other. Then ask yourself the question "why is optimism more important than integrity?" and write as many answers as you can think about under "optimism." And ask the opposite question "why is integrity more important than optimism?" and write those answers under "integrity." When you can't think of any more reasons for either side, then count which side has more reasons written on it and you'll know which one is really more important to you. The only way to change the order of importance is to have more reasons why one is more important than the other. So if you can't think of enough reasons to change the order of importance of one of your values compared to another, then you will have to get more reasons somehow. The best way to do this is to ask other people the same question and as you get answers you hadn't thought of yourself you will get to the point where you have enough to convince yourself that, that value or belief is more important than the other. If you can't find enough reasons even asking other people, then you probably shouldn't try to change the order of importance of those values because they're already in the best order. Doing all of this may take a while, but it is simple and effective.

Adding values to your list can be similarly done. All you have to do is write down as many reasons why it would be a good value to have. I recommend at least 10 reasons. The more important you think the value is, the more reasons you should try to come up with because the more reasons you come up with, the more important it will be to you and the faster this value will take hold on your subconscious mind and begin to affect your decisions. Also, the more you review this list, the faster it will take hold as well until eventually you won't need to review the list at all anymore because it'll already be a part of your list of values.

To take a value off of your list you may think that all you have to do is think of reasons why it's not a good value to have. This will work, but what will work even better is if instead of just trying to take this value off of your list, you replace it with the opposite value. Or by replacing it with a value that is in line with why you think you shouldn't take the value in question off of your list. For example if one of your values is that you always have to be right, you could find a bunch of reasons why it may not be good to have the value. But it would work better if you tried to replace that value with the value of "finding the best solution is what's really important.' Or if the reason you think you should change that value is because it causes you to argue with others over small issues, then you should replace that value with the value of "understanding and respecting others opinions is more important than trying to prove you're right," or something like that. The way you do this is by creating a list of reasons like before.

Another way to help yourself add, remove, or change your values is to link pleasure to the value you want and pain to the other or the opposite or to not having that value. This can be done by using your memory along with visualization and imagination. This is something that is part of something called Neuro-Associative Conditioning developed by Anthony Robbins. I'll explain it in a future blog, but if you don't want to wait, check out this link.

It may take some time, but evaluating what your values are, whether you should add or replace some, and whether they are in the right order for you is definitely worth the time because it determines how you will make virtually every decision, each day of your life. I encourage you to take the time to do this evaluation so it will be easier for you to stay on the road of success!