HVP Indicators: Noticing & Self-Regard
Part 1: Our options are only as good as the information we have or, how we live our days are how we live our lives
First, a chat about how we use information.
The first time I took the Hartman Value Profile and reviewed my report, I was overwhelmed by all of the information I learned about myself in that two hour conversation. But it was nothing compared to what I did next. Before I understood what this new information about me meant, I used it to, well, beat myself up.
I jumped to a lot of stories and assumptions about what it all meant about who I was and what a cruddy human I must be.
With time, I came to respect and even love what I learned about myself and the opportunities this information opened up for me. But it took a lot longer and the process was much more messy than it had to be.
Here’s some things I’ve learned that make getting to know myself a less jarring experience:
Information about myself is just information. It’s not right or wrong, good or bad. It just is.
The more uncomfortable I am while facing new information about myself, the more I need to slow down and be kind to myself. If I feel emotional, there’s probably a lot of deep stuff under there. Heaping criticism hasn’t helped, so far.
I always have this choice: I can use the information to determine what is working for me and what I want to change, or I can use it to criticize, belittle or disparage myself. I can create or destroy, but I can’t move in both directions at the same time.
Before we get into information that helps us see ourselves more clearly, it’s helpful to go ahead and decide to use the information to create something good.
The Info
That said, the first two indicators on the HVP report Noticing and Self-Regard are reflections of how much we notice around us and inside of ourselves.
So basically, the first piece of information we learn about ourselves is…how much bandwidth we have for noticing information in the world around us and the private world inside of us.
The gift here is that these indicators reflect information about how we are currently cruising through life.
Noticing Information in the World Around Us
On the World-side, the Noticing indicator provides information about the clarity of the lens we are viewing the world through.
For example, when our car windshield is really clean, we can drive slowly through a neighborhood and notice the details and intricacies of each home. We can drive around town running errands or take a roadtrip across the country through unfamiliar territories and we have clear information about our surroundings to use for navigating routes and challenges.
But if our windshield is covered with bugs, it’s harder to see our surroundings clearly. We might have some blind spots or we might miss some details.
If our windshield is caked with mud, it’s going to take a lot of effort to not hit other cars or run off the road.
In the sample above, the Noticing indicator reflects that the person taking the report has a pretty clear windshield with a couple of bugs and dust. There is an opportunity to clean up the windshield a bit. As a result, they’ll have better information, better options, and they can make better decisions.
Paying Attention to the Signals From Our Internal World
The Self-Regard indicator is similar to the first one. It is information about how clearly we are attuned to our personal internal experiences. This includes everything from the emotions we experience, our needs and desires, and senses like gut feelings and our intuition.
Where the Noticing indicator is about how clearly we can see the outside world through our windshield, the Self-Regard indicator tells us how clearly we see and respond to the lights on our dashboard, all of the signals about our internal workings.
The Self-Regard indicator above mentions two extremes, “Self-care” to “Neglect of Self,” which doesn’t mean exactly how we use the term self-care now. While we could use self-care practices to slow down or relax, this is more about the care and attention we give to our own internal signals, or the degree that we tend to disregard the information coming from within.
Intuitive signals like gut feelings, emotions, or a nagging feeling that we can’t quite put our finger on.
Physical signals like hunger, being sleepy, knowing when our body is telling us to slow down to pay careful attention to the situation in front of us.
In the example above, this person has more dust on the car dashboard and sees more clearly through the windshield. The information from the report reflects that they have more bandwidth for noticing details outside the vehicle than they do for noticing the check engine and tire pressure lights, which signal what is going on internally.
As someone who has driven vehicles with at least one rogue dashboard light for most of my adult life, I get that. #relatable
Practically, the good stuff in all of this information is that it shows us where we’re cruising through life with clear information and where we might be trying to navigate situations, challenges or directions without clear information to start with.
As a rule of thumb, where we feel relaxed, calm, and solid, we are probably looking through a pretty clear windshield or dashboard.
Where we feel rushed, tunneled vision, distracted or exhausted, we have opportunities to clear up the stuff that’s blocking our view.
As we take care of the blinking lights, bugs and grime, uncomfortable signals, and untrue stories that keep us stuck in ruts, the view gets clearer and we start noticing options we didn’t notice before.
For those of you using your personal HVP report, you are working with information that is specific to you. If you haven’t taken it, you can still do the same work, it just requires a little more attention and patience. If you want specific info about how you are cruising through life right now, along with a conversation about where it’s specifically showing up in your life, you can grab that here.