Well, if the Ouch Factor from the previous article and, especially, from Kaufman’s Victory Poem has worked you’re now probably thinking about your goals for 2010. And, if you have done some NLP and come across the NLP Well Formed Outcomes process or, as we have defined it in Pegasus NLP, the NLP PECSAW process you may have now begun designing goals for the next year.
Great! Or is it…?
Goals, walls, and ladders
Stephen Covey, in his pithy style, distinguishes between management and leadership: ‘Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.’
The same concept can be applied to our personal and professional goals, because a lot of us spend a lot of our time designing great goals – and then spending more time and energy pursuing these… only to discover that, when we attain the goals, they aren’t quite as rewarding or satisfying as we had anticipated!
Fools’ gold… or goals?
Remember that job you were after? You know, the one that you just knew would change your life for ever more if you could get it?? And then you got it. And a few months later wondered what all the fuss was about – it was no more fulfilling than the previous one?
Remember that car that, if you could just find the money to buy it, would change your life and make you feel fulfilled and successful? And a couple of months after buying it you began seeing even better and more enticing ones?
Or the gadget? Or the outfit of new clothes? Or the new watch? Or the holiday? Or the new/next date? Or the new house?
Reactive goals?
The problem with a lot of goals, however well-formed or well designed or well pursued, is that they are not thought through – they are like ladders propped against any old wall!
These goals are either based on the advice of others (including marketers and advertisers) or on our reaction to what we don’t like in our current situation or (worse still) based on the idea that we ‘should’ have goals because everyone’s else seems to have them!
Such goals are reactions to what we are uneasy about with our lives – rather than true aspirations. We keep ourselves busy climbing ladders, almost any old ladders, but without clearly thinking about where we’re going 
Values and goals
In Pegasus NLP we consider values to be the feelings or states that we want to feel or want to avoid feeling. (This may not be philosophically or intellectually precise but it is pragmatic and provides us with a practical way of utilising the concept.)
So, for example, I may aspire to ‘move toward’ values such as success, fulfilment, excitement, security, etc. And I may also (since most of us will have a blend of towards and away from values) aspire or aim to move away from experiencing such feelings as isolation, poverty, frustration, etc.
Now if my personal goals are not clearly a means to fulfilling my personal values then I could well be wasting my time – climbing any old ladders, so to speak. And, unfortunately, this is what a lot of us do – we pursue goals which appear, at the time, enticing but which are not linked to our personal values and then turn into fools gold – they looked good until we achieved them.
Creating values-driven goals
There are a number of quite precise NLP ways to identify our personal values (and in our NLP Practitioner Programme we devote some hours, and in both weeks of the Programme, to doing this in a very thorough manner.) In the he next articles will some simple methods for to identifying your values for 2010… so that your ladders are against the right walls for you.
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
Climbing your ladder! Great Blog Reg.
The first thing that came to my mind was; how often do I climb a ladder, frantically focused on the next step, rather than, how did I decide to climb that particular ladder, and against this particular wall. Looking around can really help, as well, notice the surroundings, is it safe to climb that ladder right now?
Would it help if someone was holding it for you? Sometimes we may find ourselves so determined to achieve a goal without checking if it actually fits in with not only our values, also of those around us, something like ‘The ecology’.
I also have noticed that I sometimes have already achieved so many things, and a polite reminder of this helps, remember the journey…. When I look back at where I have come from, I realise I sometimes have a ladder proped up agianst a wall, which actually I have climbed before, and therefore do not necessarily have to climb again. I see my values as the central hub for my goals, if I am clear on my values, the goals almost become a tactical aspect of achieving the values.
I now feel I am stepping into the world of babbling, so thanks Reg for a yet again brilliant blog!
Jonny
I especially like the thought ‘would it help if someone was holding the ladder for you?’
For many of us (especially men), when it comes to goals and values, the old childhood admonition to ‘be a man – stand on your own two feet!’ can get in the way of realising that we may part of a couple or of a family and that there is this Relationship Ecology thing to take into account…