Tony Robbins -Re-Awaken_the_Giant_Within

So I began to elicit her rules for each of her values: “What has to happen in order for you to feel____?”
For her to feel love, her answer was, “I have to feel like I’ve earned it. I have to feel like all my beliefs are
accepted and approved of by every person I meet. I can’t feel like I’m loved unless I’m perfect. I have to
be a great mother, a great wife,” and so forth.
Instantly we began to see the problem. Love was the highest value on her list, the greatest source of
pleasure she could possibly feel in her body. Yet her rules did not allow her to give herself this pleasure
unless she met these complex criteria that she couldn’t control! If any of us made our ability to feel
loved dependent on everyone accepting our views, we wouldn’t feel love very often, would we? There
are just too many people with different ideas and beliefs, and therefore too many ways for us to feel bad.
How do we know if a rule empowers or disempowers us? There are three primary criteria:
1. It’s a disempowering rule if it’s impossible to meet. If your criteria are so complex or varied or intense
that you can’t ever win the game of life, clearly you have a disempowering rule.
2. A rule is disempowering if something that you can’t control determines whether your rule has been
met or not. For example, if other people have to respond to you in a certain way, or if the environment
has to be a certain way, you clearly have a disempowering rule. A classic example of this is the people
waiting to view the eclipse who couldn’t be happy unless the weather—something they couldn’t
control—acted according to their specific expectations.
3. A rule is disempowering if it gives you only a few ways to feel good and lots of ways to feel bad.
Laurie had managed to meet all three of these criteria for disempowering rules, hadn’t she? Having to
feel that all her beliefs were accepted and approved by people was an impossible criterion. It required
the outside environment, something she could not control—other people’s opinions—to make her feel
good. It provided lots of ways to feel bad, and provided no clear way to feel good. Here are some of the
rest of her rules for her values hierarchy:
LAURIE’S OLD MOVING-TOWARD VALUES AND RULES
Love: I have to feel like I’ve earned it, like all my beliefs are accepted and approved. I can’t feel like I’m
loved unless I’m perfect. I have to be a great mother and wife.
Health: I have to feel like my diet is perfect by my strict standards. I have to be completely free of
physical pain. I must feel like I’m healthier than everyone I know and be an example.
Security: Everyone must like me. I must feel that everyone I meet is certain I’m a good person. I must be
certain that there will be no nuclear war. I must have much more money in my savings account than I
already do.
Freedom: I must be in control of my working demands, hours, fees, opinions, etc. I must be financially
secure enough not to live under stress or financially related pressure.
How likely do you think it is that Laurie will meet one of her values, much less all of them? What about
her rules for health? “I have to feel like my diet is perfect by my strict standards.” She was not only
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