Neuro Linguistic Programming

Chapter 3: Discovering Who’s Directing Your Life 47

After you’ve acted, you use these values to judge whether the deed was good

or bad. For instance, if you value honesty you may decide to pick up a wallet

you find in the street for safe-keeping and feel good about handing it over to

the police.

When considering your values, ask yourself the question ‘what’s important to

me?’ Your answers reflect your values.

Values affect the choice of your friends and partners, the types of goods you

purchase, the interests you pursue, and how you spend your free time. Your

life has many facets. You’re probably a member of a family, a team at work,

and maybe you belong to a club in your pursuit of a hobby, just to name a

few. Each of these areas of your life, family, work, leisure, and so on has its

own values hierarchy, with the most important value at the top. The values

at the top of the hierarchy are usually more abstract than those further down

and exert the most influence in your life. For example, in Figure 3-2, family

and friends is fairly concrete, whereas happiness is more intangible.

Figure 3-2:
A ladder of
values.

Family and Friends

Togetherness

Companionship

Love

Happiness