I would like to thank Squarespace sponsoring this video and for helping me build my own
website. More on that later.
I think a lot of people freak out over not having direction in life.
See, when you’re hungry, you know exactly what you need to do to not be hungry anymore.
When you’re tired, you know exactly what you need to do to not be tired—because those
are things necessary for our survival. But how about when you’re feeling directionless?
There is no biological map telling you exactly what you need to do—but that’s when you
can turn to your values and principles in life.
See, your values and principles are essentially what guides you through life—and if you
follow them, it’s what going to dictate your behavior and the decisions you make.
It’s what decides what kind of person you are and what kind of people you decide to
keep around you. It’s what you accept and what you do not accept. It helps you with
your priorities, how you treat yourself and how you treat others. It might help you with
your academic and professional decisions or help you pick a partner. Even smaller things
like whether you should take the bus or walk or thrift instead of shop.
As you can hear it’s pretty powerful. And it’s not exactly anything profound.
Human beings have always sought out guidance—whether it be through religion and gurus or parents
and teachers—some kind of higher power or figure which in turn help shape our values
and principles. Your faith may teach you about compassion and service; your parents may teach
you about honesty and respect—and as a kid, all you really know is what’s being passed
on to you by someone who got it passed on to them. So, essentially, you could be living
a life lead by the values and principles of your great, great, great, grandmother’s
kindergarten teacher.
…and although that might be great and all—we’re all different, and times are different—life
is different. What’s been passed on to you hasn’t been customized for you; your wants
and your needs in life. And sometimes it doesn’t need to be. Compassion doesn’t need to be
customized. Kindness doesn’t need to be customized. But some things do.
Like, I sometimes receive messages from people saying things like “I want to focus on my
art, but my parents don’t support it”. And sure, partly it might have to do with
the parental instinct of looking after their child, but part of their reaction is based
on both what got passed on to them and what they have experienced in their lives. Perhaps
they grew up struggling financially so money was really tight, so being financially secure
is extremely important to them. Meanwhile you haven’t had that experience, and what
matters to you more than anything is fulfillment through work.
This is why it’s so important to have our own set of values and principles based on
who you are and what you want to achieve in life. Simply accepting someone else’s as
being your own is like grabbing someone else’s map to their house, hoping it will somehow
lead to your house. It won’t, and you’ll just end up lost, when the whole point of
this all is to find direction.
Now, how you develop your own set of values and principles, besides having it being passed
on to you and other external factors, is through life experience. You know? We meet people,
we go through things, we fail, we succeed, we go to school, we travel, we get hurt, we
start looking up to other people, we read books, listen to music and so on.
Through these experiences, we learn what’s important to us and what’s not. We learn
what we value and what we don’t value, what we want and what we don’t want.
And although a lot of those core values and principles that we grew up with may remain
with us, we’ll also form our own personal ones—and that’s what’s going to act
as our compass in life, because ideally, you’ll be living a life that aligns with your values
and principles, where every decision you make is in accordance with that.
Ok, so, let’s say you want to become more aware of your values and principles and live
a life that aligns with them, where do you start?
I want to start by saying that there are no rules. As long as you’re not hurting yourself
or anyone else, no one can tell you that your values and principles are wrong or that they
don’t matter.
And also, this is just what works for me. There are tons of books and other resources
you can turn to if you want to learn more about this topic. With that being said,
I think a good place to start is to list the things that are non-negatable to you. Not
to society, not to your family, not to anyone—just you.
As Dr. Stephen Covey wrote in his book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” a principle
is a natural law like gravity. Principles, like gravity, are in control.
The way I interpret that is that it’s basically the things that are as true as the fact that
a runner needs to run.
Ok, so, when you list these things, ask yourself what you’re seeking and why.
Like, to me, loyalty is one of those things. The reason why is because I’m seeking commitment
and trust in any relationship that I have, it’s very important to me, whether it be
romantic or friends, and anything other than that isn’t something I want in my life.
Because it’s my natural law, I distance myself or let go of anyone who goes against
that. It doesn’t “depend”, there is no “what if”, it just is—like gravity.
Now, once you’ve listed your natural laws, continue by listing things that perhaps aren’t
as evident to you, but that you still live by, or at least try to live by.
So, one of those things for me is to “always give credit where credit is due.” I don’t
have a 100 % success rate at this, but I always try. The reason I’m seeking to do that is
because it’s nice. It’s encouraging. The same way you light up when getting recognized
or accredited for something good you’ve done; others light up as well. If someone
cooked a good meal, I make sure they know that. If someone said something that sparked
an idea in my mind, I make sure they know it. We need more appreciation in this world.
Now, not only is doing this “exercise” really helpful, but it’s also really fun
because there are no rules. You can have as many values and principles as you want or
as few as you want. You can literally have something like “if it’s a 30-minute walk
or less, I will walk”. That way, next time you’re going somewhere, you’ll already
know you’ll be walking if it’s less than 30 minutes. And now you might think, well
that’s a silly thing to put on my list. Yeah, well, if you only knew how much time
we spend contemplating silly things like that you’d be surprised.
Now, at the end of the day, it’s about identifying your truths and letting those truth guide
you through life. Are there ever going to be exceptions, even to the natural laws? Perhaps.
Will your values and principles ever change? Of course. Because you change. You grow. What’s
important to you now may not be important to you in 5 years. What you value in a partner
today may not be something you value in the future. What you think you want from life
now may not align with what you’ll want for yourself next year. I mean, just look
back on your own life and you’ll find that to be true. And that’s okay, but that’s
also why I think it’s important to re-visit and re-evaluate our list from time to time.
That way, you won’t lose sight of where you’re heading in life.
I’ll be sharing a few more of my values and principles on my Patreon if you’re interested
in checking that out. I share blog posts approximately every week there, sometimes in text and sometimes
in audio and I also occasionally post bonus videos.
Now, let's
talk about today's sponsor: Squarespace. Now, if you're a blogger or artist or entrepreneur
or if you just want a landing page for your brand, I think a website can be really valuable.
The reason I put off building one for so long was honestly because it just sounded too complicated
and I didn't want to invest that time. But with squarespace you can build a professional
looking website and it’s really easy. You can connect your social media and keep track
of the traffic and so much more. I’m still working on my site; I will of course announce
when it’s up