One of the books I’m reading during my time here in Tony Robbin’s ReAwaken the Giant Within (a revised edition to Awaken the Giant Within). The point I’m at at the moment is looking at the order you prioritise a certain list of values that motivate you, so feelings you like to feel (love, acceptance, success, etc) and then the same with a list of feeling you like to avoid (depression, anger, humiliation, etc). He talks about how values that you associate with pain are more effective motivators that those you associate with success. So to give you an example from my list, here are my two lists:
Pleasure focused values (in order of what I associate the most ‘pleasure’ with or desire most:
- Love
- Intimacy
- Success
- Adventure
- Passion
- Freedom
- Security
- Comfort
- Health
- Power
Pain focused values (in order of what I associate the most ‘pain’ with):
- Rejection
- Humiliation
- Failure
- Guilt
- Loneliness
- Depression
- Anger
- Frustration
Now what’s interesting, is he’s just talked about conflicts in our two values list. Take a look at the top three in both my lists, we have love, intimacy and success on one side, and rejection, failure and humiliation on the other side. He talks about pain being a bigger motivating factor than pleasure, so we all do more to avoid pain, than we do to get success.
So in my life, reflecting back, I can see that although I crave love, intimacy and success as my top values, what holds me back from getting that, is often my fear of rejection, failure and humiliation. Because love and intimacy involve a risk of rejection,I’m tend to shy away from what I most value in life, in order to avoid feeling the pain that potentially could come from that relationship. To put it bluntly, I see a pretty girl (it’s more than just looks, but we are simplifying here), and instead of asking her out, which could lead to love, intimacy and a successful relationship (what I value most). The pain I associate with her say no (rejection, failure, humiliation) is more of a motivating factor than the potential pleasure I would receive from her saying yes. So my brain decides, subconsciously sometimes, that it’s not worth pursuing.
I haven’t reached the next part of the book that address this issues, but I want to encourage you to take 5 minutes to order those values for yourself and see if, like me, you have any conflict in those top few. Then take some time to reflect on that and see if it has held you back in your past. I would love to hear your thoughts below in the comments section.
