Scion of NLP

Archive for January 29th, 2008

For anyone who has instructed you’ll understand when I talk about revelations during the teaching process. The most interesting thing I’ve found is that these revelations are becoming less and less realizations and more often the remembering of something I realized some time before. As I was teaching a workshop yesterday I had a question relating to motivation and what drives a person to make certain choices. As we (the group) discussed ideas and concepts about criteria we use to make choices I remembered something my mentor (Judy Wright) once said; “A value can sometimes be used as criteria in the decision making process.”

As I began trying to relate this concept to the class a difference had to be made between a “Need” and a “Value”. William Glasser, developer of Reality Therapy & Choice Theory, talks about th 5 Basic Needs (Safety/Survival, Fun, Freedom, Power, Love & Belonging) and these are different than our Core Values.

A core value identifies the guidelines of how we get our needs met – let’s use an example; someone who we love refuses to stop talking to us and we need to leave, yet we can’t just turn and walk away because that would be rude. This person helps fill our need for LOVE & BELONGING and we VALUE respect because we were raised to believe that a good person who deserves love is respectful (i.e. us). Adhering to our values we try to politely interrupt and explain that we must leave. Now let’s complicate it …the reason we must go is because we have to get to work so we can earn the money to buy the luxuries in life (ultimately giving us a sense of POWER over our life). That need for Power will be met because we VALUE punctuality in our career.

If we are unable to appropriately interrupt the person speaking, then the first question is, “Which NEED is stronger – the one for LOVE & BELONGING or the the one for POWER?” If they’re comparable then the next question is, “Which do we VALUE more – respect in our relationship or punctuality in our career?”.

So ultimately it is our Needs which drive us and, in the situation where two needs competing to be met are equal in strength, then our Core Values become the deciding factor in motivation. It’s only when our Needs are largely depleted that our Values begin to change unexpectedly. In our example this could be seen in a situation where we’re feeling we MUST go to work that day and be on time otherwise we’ll lose our job and we have no other means to pay rent which is due the same day. In that case we can become increasingly rude in our attempts to leave until finally we just turned and walked away.

Now …please note that I am aware this is a fairly simplistic, black & white example which doesn’t take into account the concept of feedback or our belief systems or other such things. It does however explain my point. Your value systems are what guide your choices. Your needs are what motivate you. Only when your basic needs are filled, then your values become a deciding factor in motivation …and that’s something to think about the next time you’re looking at your list of new years resolutions.