Personal Power 5: Value and belief system

Values are emotional states that, based on our life experience, we believe are most important for us to experience.

In other words, we learn to give labels to what we experience. Our values come from some of these labels.

Two types of values: moving toward and moving away values.

What do you value the most? Love, success, security, happiness, adventure, …?

What do you want to avoid the most? Anger, frustration, danger, boredom,…?

We always think of the values of doing something before actually doing it.

Example: sky diving. We evaluate this event by thinking of the values we get and the values we want to avoid in doing it.

Without careful thinking, most people are not aware of their value systems.

We all have a hierarchy of values which strongly affects our behavior and life.

This also means that if you change your value system, your destiny will be changed.

Practice: Write down the most important values you want and the ones you try to avoid.

Question: Where did your values come from? Parents, friends, ...

We only pay attention to what we value the most (or what we think is important to us).

Unfortunately a lot of people have conflicting values (e.g. they want success but they also fear rejection and failure).

The moving-toward values, or “pleasure” values, are emotions like love, happiness, success, security, adventure. These are known as ends values.

It is important to make the distinction between “means” values, which are simply “vehicles” or “instruments,” and ends values, which drive all of our behaviors

Example: Some people say that what they value most are their cars. It is true they may value a car highly (i.e., it’s important to them), but they value it as a means, a way to get what they are really after.

The end those people are seeking may be a sense of convenience or a sense of freedom or a sense of power or fun.

Likewise, many people say they want money. But money is merely a means to an end.

They don’t want pieces of paper with pictures of “deceased notables” on them.

For some people, they believe having money means security or the ability to take control of their lives, and a feeling of having lots of choices.

The secret in life is to know what you are really after, which are the end values.

All decision making is nothing hut values clarification.

If you know what you value most, what you truly want most out of life, then you will find you can make decisions much more effectively and rapidly.

In addition to values, your beliefs also determine how you feel and impact your life.

A belief is a feeling of certainty about the meaning of something.

Your beliefs determine whether or not you feel like you are meeting your values—they can either limit or liberate you.

For example, we think if we have …, then we are happy.

These beliefs are the rules we set up about what has to happen in order to experience certain feelings.

There are two basic kinds of beliefs: 1. Global beliefs are generalizations:

“Life is…,” “Men/women are…,” “I am…”

(One of the worst Chinese traditional beliefs: If someone likes having sex, he/she is sinful.)

2. Rules are conditional ideas: “If this, then that.”

For those who have the same values, they may have different beliefs (rules) for them to make sure that they get the values.

Example: When I was a university student, I did not think I have a successful life at that time because my rule was to perform well in academics, affection, and activities.

Discussion: What are your beliefs?

A lot of people’s beliefs keep them from enjoying the kind of great feelings they deserve!

If we change our beliefs, will we lose the motivation to move forward because our values are too easy to get?

The idea is not only to enjoy the feeling of getting your destination but also enjoy the process.

The truth is, for any state or value you want, you can have it right now!

We can feel the feelings by using lots of techniques (like moving your body in a specific way, anchoring, or remembering past experience).

All the feelings we have are neural excitations in our brains.

Unfortunately most people do not know about this, and set up unbelievable rules for themselves to feel bad all the time.

What are your beliefs? Do you think you are too young, so you cannot …?

Have you ever believed “if I get this, I will have that” and after a while you found that you were wrong?

Example: sport competitions; buying cars

Whether your belief is true or not, you are right!

Limiting beliefs shut you down; empowering beliefs keep you moving forward.

Our beliefs determine the kind of questions we ask, which also determine what we focus on and how we feel.