Instead of rushing about in the dark
Thomas Henry Huxley was a London biologist during the second half of the 1800’s. He coined the term ‘agnostic’ and championed the work of Charles Darwin’s work, among other things. There is a story of his being late for an appointment, rushing out of his house, hailing a hansom cab, and shouting to the cabbie ‘Top speed – I’m late!’
After a few moments the thought dawned on him… He stuck his head out the window and shouted to the cabbie ‘Hey, do you know where I want to go?’
‘No, sir, I don’t,’ shouted the cabbie, ‘But I’m going as fast as I can!’
That’s effectively what happens when you have goals which are not linked to your values. You feel focussed, get very busy, and have a feeling that you’re really doing something and going somewhere – but you’re really just being pointlessly busy… rushing about in the dark and getting nowhere of real importance or value to you.
Which is why this mini-series of articles has paid so much attention to exploring how to identify the values or feelings which you truly want to fulfil or experience.
NLP and values – and action plans
If you have been taking action following the first six articles on using NLP to identify your values you now have a list of your Top 7 values. And these are arranged in order of their importance to you. And you have ensured that fulfilling any one them will not be in conflict with fulfilling any of the others.
Now it’s time to prepare for action. We want to end up with action plans and ‘milestones’ and the intermediary step is to brainstorm lots of things you can do to take you towards your desired feeling andaway from your undesirable ones.
Back to Jack’s Values’ Hierarchy
In the last two NLP & Goals articles we looked at Jack’s hierarchy of values. So let’s say that as a result of reading the last article he has tweaked the hierarchy and his aim is now:
- Feel healthy and fit
- Have a mutually rewarding personal relationship
- Experience fun
- Avoid pressure & stress
- Be successful at work
- Experience excitement
- Having a nice house and car
So far he has clarified his thoughts and his priorities in life – and especially for the near future. But he hasn’t done anything to translate this thinking into action. That’s what needs to happen next. And he will use his Values hierarchy as a basis for designing Action Plans for the next few months.
Jack’s No. 1 Value: Feel healthy and fit
His desire is to be fit and healthy. Without an action plan this is just a dream – an aspiration. He must now decide what actions he can take to ensure that he gives priority to his health and fitness in the coming months.
A good starting point would be to list of all of the ways he can think of in which he could improve his health and fitness:
- Cardio vascular exercise for his heart and lungs e.g. walking, running or cycling more.
- Strength exercise for his muscles and bones e.g. resistance or weight training
- Flexibility exercise to release tension and lengthen tight muscles and tendons
- Eat better e.g. paying closer attention to what he eats, how much he eats, how it is prepared, where it comes from, etc
- Rest better e.g. identifying how he rests and the quality of this rest.
- Re-create better e.g. considering how his recreational activities may be health enhancing – or health reducing
This is not a list of goals. It is a prelude to creating goals – a list of activities from which Jack can select when he is creating his goals for the next few months or the next year or so.
Jack’s No. 4 Value: Avoid stress and pressure ?
How do we use this process with Away From Values (i.e. feelings which we want to avoid feeling) such as Jack’s ‘Avoid Stress and Pressure’ value?
(1) Jack might begin by listing his self-stressors, the ways in which he stresses himself e.g. procrastinating, creating too many deadlines, leaving things to the last minute, negative self talk, etc.
(2) Next he might look at the unavoidable stressors such as pressure at work, financial worries, etc and consider ways in which he may be able to manage the situation. These ways could include improving how he manages this time or his schedules, discussing his workload with his management, or, in the case of financial pressures, negotiating with his creditors or getting advice from debt/credit counsellors.
(3) Finally he could consider the ways in which he can mitigate how he is affected by these unavoidable stressors.
Action Steps
So your own next action step will be to do a brainstorm such the one above for each of your top 7 values. However this is not just a list-making process: often the first effect of doing this is that we recognise just how much choice we have; the huge range of little ways in which we can fulfil our values without having to totally reorganise our lives.
The full Goals and Values series
NLP and Goals (1) – http://pegasusnlpblog.com/goals-nlp-the-ouch-factor
NLP and Goals (2) – http://pegasusnlpblog.com/nlp-goals-values-fools-gold
NLP and Goals (3) – http://pegasusnlpblog.com/nlp-goals-day-dreaming
NLP and Goals (4) – http://pegasusnlpblog.com/nlp-rapport-gimme-win-win
NLP and Goals (5) – http://pegasusnlpblog.com/nlp-goals-values-hierarchy
NLP and Goals (6) – http://pegasusnlpblog.com/nlp-goals-avoid-inner-conflict
NLP and Goals (7) – http://pegasusnlpblog.com/nlp-goals-prepare-to-act
