NLP Values Elicitation: Understanding What Truly Drives You

Published: 10 Sep 2024

NLP Values Elicitation with pegs

Author: If I Grow Team

Have you ever wondered why you make the decisions you do? Why certain things feel more important to you than others? The answer lies in your values. These are the driving forces behind your actions, guiding you toward what you want and away from what you don’t. In this blog post, we’ll dive into the fascinating process of NLP values elicitation, which can help you understand and harness your values to create the life you truly desire.

What Are Values?

Values are like an internal compass, guiding your decisions and actions. They are the deep-seated beliefs that motivate you to move toward or away from specific behaviors. In the context of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), values play a crucial role in shaping your goals, behaviors, and overall life satisfaction.

Understanding your values can be a game-changer. When you know what truly matters to you, you can align your actions with your deepest desires, leading to greater fulfillment and success. Values are context-dependent, meaning they can change depending on the situation—whether it’s your career, relationships, or personal growth.

Nlp Values Elicitation: Understanding What Truly Drives You

Using NLP Values Elicitation

Eliciting your values involves a simple yet profound process of self-reflection. This process helps you uncover what truly matters to you in different areas of your life. Let’s walk through the steps of values elicitation.

Step 1: Choose a Context

The first step is to choose a specific context in which you want to elicit your values. This could be anything from your career to your personal relationships, health, or even a specific decision like buying a car. For example, if you want to understand what drives you in your career, the context would be “career.”

Step 2: Ask the Right Questions

Once you’ve chosen a context, it’s time to ask yourself some important questions. The goal is to uncover what’s truly important to you in that specific area. Here’s a simple yet powerful question to start with:

  • “What is important to me in [context]?”

For example, if your context is career, you might ask, “What is important to me in my career?” Allow yourself to answer honestly, without overthinking or filtering your responses. Write down the exact words that come to mind.

Step 3: Record Exact Answers

As you begin to answer these questions, it’s crucial to write down your answers exactly as they come to you. Don’t paraphrase or reinterpret your thoughts—just capture them as they are. For instance, if your answer is “respect,” write down “respect” exactly.

Step 4: Keep Asking

To get a complete picture of your values, keep asking yourself the same question until you run out of answers. Here’s how it might look in practice:

  • Q: What is important to you in a career?
  • A: Respect.
  • Q: What else is important to you in a career?
  • A: Helping people.
  • Q: What else is important to you in a career?
  • A: Independence.

Continue this process until you feel you’ve uncovered all the important values related to the context.

Ranking Your Values

Once you’ve elicited your values, the next step is to rank them in order of importance. Ranking your values helps you understand which ones hold the most weight in your decision-making process.

Why Ranking is Important

Ranking your values allows you to prioritize them, making it easier to make decisions that align with what truly matters to you. For example, if you know that “prosperity” is more important to you than “recognition,” you might choose a job that offers higher pay over one that offers more public acknowledgment.

How to Rank Your Values

Start by looking at the list of values you’ve elicited. Ask yourself:

  • “If in any one day I could only have one of these, which would it be?”

The value you choose is your top priority. Then ask:

  • “If I could have [top value] and one more, what would it be?”

Continue this process until you’ve ranked all your values. Here’s an example of how this might look:

  1. Prosperity
  2. Satisfaction
  3. Respect
  4. Independence
  5. Recognition

This list represents your hierarchy of values for the chosen context.

Aligning Your Values

Once you’ve ranked your values, it’s essential to ensure that your actions align with them. This alignment is what makes your decisions feel right and satisfying.

Nlp Values Elicitation: Understanding What Truly Drives You

Checking for Values Alignment

To check for alignment, consider a decision or situation in your life and compare it against your ranked values. For example, if you’re considering a job offer, see how well it matches your top values. If the job offers prosperity and respect but lacks independence, you may need to weigh your options carefully.

Here’s an exercise to try:

  1. Identify a decision or situation you’re currently facing.
  2. Compare it against your top values. Does it meet your top-ranked values? If not, how important are those missing values in this context?
  3. Make adjustments if necessary to align your actions with your values. This might mean choosing a different path or finding ways to incorporate more of your top values into your current situation.

Eliciting Away-From Values

Just as you have values that pull you toward certain behaviors (towards values), you also have values that push you away from others (away-from values). Understanding these can be just as important in guiding your decisions.

Understanding Away-From Values

Away-from values are the things you seek to avoid. These might be situations, behaviors, or emotions that you find undesirable or even intolerable. For example, if “stress” is something you avoid at all costs, that would be an away-from value.

How to Elicit Away-From Values

To identify your away-from values, ask yourself:

  • “What is important for me to avoid in [context]?”

For example, in the context of your career, you might answer, “Working in a toxic environment.” Write down these responses and rank them just as you did with your towards values. Understanding both your towards and away-from values gives you a complete picture of what drives your decisions.

Mapping the Meaning of Your Values

Mapping the meaning of your values helps you understand the deeper motivations behind them. This step involves asking meta-questions that explore what each value truly means to you.

Why Mapping is Crucial

Mapping your values reveals the underlying reasons why certain values are important to you. It adds depth to your understanding and can help you make even more aligned decisions.

How to Map Meaning

For each of your top values, ask questions like:

  • “What does [value] mean to me?”
  • “Why is [value] important to me?”
  • “What does having [value] allow me to experience?”

For example, if your top value is “freedom,” you might ask, “What does freedom mean to me?” Your answer could be “the ability to make my own choices without restrictions.” This deeper understanding can guide your actions more effectively.

Applying Your Values in Everyday Life

Understanding and aligning your values is not just an exercise—it’s a tool for living a more intentional and fulfilling life. Here’s how you can apply your values in everyday decisions.

Using Values for Decision-Making

Whenever you’re faced with a decision, big or small, use your values as a guide. Ask yourself:

  • “Does this choice align with my top values?”
  • “Am I avoiding something that contradicts my away-from values?”

By consistently checking your decisions against your values, you’ll find that you make choices that feel more authentic and satisfying.

Further Resources

If you’re interested in learning more about how NLP can help you uncover and align your values, I recommend checking out the book “NLP: The Essential Guide”. It offers deeper insights into how NLP techniques can be applied to various aspects of life, including values elicitation.

For a broader introduction to NLP coaching, be sure to read A Beginner’s Guide to an NLP Coaching Session. It provides a solid foundation on how NLP can be used to achieve personal and professional goals.

And if you’re ready to take the next step and work with an NLP coach, visit our main site to find the right coach who can help you align your values and create the life you want.

Conclusion

Eliciting and understanding your values is a powerful process that can transform the way you make decisions and live your life. By identifying what truly matters to you and ensuring your actions align with those values, you can achieve greater fulfillment and success in all areas of your life.

Take the time to go through the steps outlined in this post, and don’t hesitate to revisit and refine your values as you grow and evolve. Your values are the key to unlocking a life that is not just successful but deeply satisfying.

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