Values and Life Rules

Values are expressed in terms such as security, love, honesty, honor, loyalty, reliability, responsibility, etc. They lie behind our behaviors and act as inner motivators. If you want to change your behavior but have values that contradict the desired behavior, you will not succeed. You won't be able to maintain your new behavior for long.

Only when your values support your behavior will you be able to permanently change your life. Because from our values, we also shape our life rules.

Overview

1. What are values?
   1. Types
   2. Origin
2. Values in Relationships
3. Value Analysis
   1. What are my values?
4. Value Hierarchy
5. Change of My Value Hierarchy
   1. Values and Life History Development

What are Values?

Definition: Typically formulated as abstract nominalizations, values are of utmost importance for individuals, businesses, and society. Values are the driving force and guidance for our behavior and serve as criteria for the subsequent evaluation or judgment of our actions. Values constitute an ideal reference framework that directs our activities and assessments, guiding us toward achieving the desired outcomes. They must be tangible within a concrete interaction framework and be "negotiated" there, as they form the basis for our judgments about what makes life worth living.

Everyone uses their personal values to move toward their goals and outcomes. The feeling of personal satisfaction and wholeness results from a match between current behavior and personal values. The people you love or are friends with, the way you raise (or would raise) your children, the political direction you support, how you perform your work, the clothes you wear, the food you eat – all of this is determined by the individual values you claim for yourself.

Types

Societal Values: Fundamental values on which a society is built (norms).
Examples: Security, freedom, justice, equality, and progress

Ethical Values: Everyone has their own ethical values by which they act and evaluate their surroundings.
Examples: Success, respect, honesty, health

With regard to motivational factors, they can be classified as follows:

• Change: Freedom (thought, action), stimulation (emotional, intellectual), etc.
• Personal reinforcement: Success, power, material wealth, etc.
• Social reinforcement: Care, justice, tolerance, love, etc.
• Preservation: Rule conformity, tradition, environmental protection, health, etc.

Origin

Besides ethics, values are also an important aspect in sociology, pedagogy, psychology, and theology. Values are often not rational, but rather emotional, instinctual, aesthetic, moral, or religious. With the help of values, we judge what is good/bad, pleasant/unpleasant, true/false, beautiful/ugly, or appropriate/inappropriate.

Since values are very personal, strongly emotional guiding principles and motivators, and include our beliefs, their development follows the same developmental periods as the acquisition of belief systems:
Following the period of "unconscious modeling" through introjection and identification with immediate caregivers, there is a period of socialization outside the family in school, peer groups, and the workplace; finally, values can also be integrated through conscious modeling.

Sources of the development of our values include: our family of origin, our friends, the community in which we grow up, social institutions (school, church, clubs, etc.), the work environment, and the economic, social, and political conditions. Values are thus strongly connected with our identity, beliefs, and attitudes.

Values are the most unconscious parts of our personality. Values are principles, standards, or qualities that are accepted as valuable or desirable by individuals or a group.

Values are closely linked with an individual's beliefs, attitudes, and meta-programs. Terms such as honor, responsibility, friendship, love, creativity, etc., can be values and criteria that serve as guiding patterns and sorting principles for a person in any context. Perceived facts and actions are filtered through our five senses, and personal activities are directed toward achieving the desired values. Different individuals in a community, institution, or company may possess different values and criteria. The belief in certain things can also be expressed in the form of values. For example, belief in religion or a specific god can also be a value.

Values in Relationships

Engaging with one's own values and recognizing which values are most important helps make life more meaningful. It explains many conflicts, but also many decisions and needs. Clarifying values in a partnership, especially at the beginning of a new relationship, can provide significant value and make everyday life even more beautiful. The clarity of one's own values and the clarity of values in the relationship form a very strong foundation.

Value Analysis

What are our priorities and where do we set boundaries?
People, social relationships, time, place, activities, nature, or circumstances are of varying importance at different times and stages of life: for example, it can be assumed that with marriage or the birth of a child, a shift in values and evaluation criteria occurs.

It is completely natural that value conflicts arise in different life situations and through changes. While these can also be stimulating and interesting, sometimes they simply block you.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming provides professional communicators with various methods for identifying and changing a hierarchy of personal and conflicting values.

Decision-making is based on values and systems and is usually unconscious. However, for the attentive communicator, it is important to listen for the use of modal operators of necessity:

• "I must do this"
• "I absolutely need this"
• "I can't do anything but endure this"

Depending on the context and desired outcome, values and criteria can come into conflict, for example, when different values and criteria need to be prioritized or subordinated to others.
For example: "I must take better care of my health and relax more"
vs. "It is important for me to finish this work by the end of the month at all costs."

What are My Values?

Values and criteria for the individual can be discovered by paying attention to the nominalizations used or by asking simple questions such as:

• "What motivated you to take your current job?"
• "What is most important within your social relationships?"
• "What do you consider particularly valuable in your life?"
• "Why are you doing this?"

Individual Work

(Alternatively or in addition to 1 and 2, you could also ask: "How do you spend your time?" "What do you spend your money on?" "Where do you invest your energy?" The more precisely these questions are answered, the more you know about the real preferences and, indirectly, the guiding values. What a person consciously knows about their values will always be a hopeless mixture of rationalization, idealized self-image, and some accurate self-observations.)

Partner Work

Value Hierarchy

Discover your own hierarchy of values. What is important to you in life? Which values play the most important role for you?

Your values are, of course, completely individual; the list below is merely intended to provide you with food for thought.

Love	Success	Creativity
Selflessness	Understanding	Sexuality
Attractiveness	Respect	Obedience
Admiration	Honesty	Integrity
Health	Professionalism	Generosity
Freedom	Adventure	Influence
Power	Independence	Ambition
Passion	Fun	Trust

To make the ordering of values more visual for you, I will show you through some examples how to rank them. This is just an example; you determine your values entirely on your own!

Example

The values could be: Passion, Imagination, Freedom, Development, Adventure, Success, and Health.

Now I wonder, which value is more important to me.

Is Passion or Imagination more important to me? Passion.

Is Passion more important than Freedom? Yes.

What is more important: Passion or Development? ...

This is how I compare all the values one by one with Passion. If there is no value more important than Passion, then Passion comes in first place. If there is a value that is more important, it is given priority and compared with all the others. For example, if Success is more important than Passion, then Success becomes number 1. If you follow this consistently, you'll quickly have your highest values ranked.

Difficulties in Categorizing

At some points, it might be difficult for you to categorize.

Example: Is Freedom more important to me, or Adventure? When I experience adventure, I feel free; without freedom, I cannot experience adventure.

Suggestion: If you're stuck, ask yourself: "What does freedom and adventure mean to me?"

Freedom could mean being able to do whatever I want. Adventure could mean taking on exciting challenges. Now you can compare better: What is more important to me: being able to do whatever I want, or mastering exciting challenges? Mastering exciting challenges—Adventure is therefore a higher value. If, despite asking yourself these questions, you still can't make a clear distinction, ask yourself: "What would happen if one of these values disappeared?" Could I imagine a life without adventure? It would be boring, I would be listless, and have little motivation. What if I had no freedom? I would be dependent. Is it worse to be dependent or to be listless? Listless. Therefore, adventure is more important than freedom. Would I prefer to have no freedom, but have adventure? Or is it more enjoyable to give up adventures and have freedom instead?

Hierarchy of My Values

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etc.

Questioning the Individual Values

Go through your list again and explore what these values mean to you.

Ask yourself: What does love/success/passion... mean to me?

Example: Love means to me going through thick and thin with another person. What does going through thick and thin with another person mean to you? Being able to trust the other. Feel free to ask, as often behind a word there is something entirely different for us than someone else would assume.

Change of My Value Hierarchy

Values and Life History Development

Being aware of your values and their hierarchy, or consciously shaping them, is a foundation for changing life rules, which also helps you in reshaping your life.