What are your governing values? Do you care? Should you care?<\/p>\n
Ideas and beliefs about the relative importance of things in your life are called values. For example, If you value security highly, choosing to leave your job and start your own business might be unlikely or could cause a great deal of stress \u2013 unless, of course you changed your values. On the other hand, if you value wealth above security, staying in a \u201csafe, secure job\u201d (if there is such a thing) at an average wage would be a frustrating experience as you would likely find yourself constantly looking for other opportunities.<\/p>\n
However, if you value security and wealth equally, you will experience the frustration of a values conflict \u2013 the feeling that any decision might be the wrong one; consequently you may not be able to make any decision. Unfortunately making no decision is even worse. Just realize that these emotions and frustrations are all mental and have nothing to do with what is the right or wrong decision.<\/p>\n
Governing values are not facts but simply choices. These choices are typically made for us \u2026 initially by parents and our childhood environment. As we grow and mature, our values tend to change and become our choices. So the ability to choose your own values is really the freedom to choose the direction for your life.<\/p>\n
When you act in accordance with your governing values, you experience emotional balance, a sense of security and pleasure. When your actions are out of alignment with your governing values, you can experience fear, guilt, frustration and emotional imbalance.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, you can get rid of those negative, unwanted feelings by changing your actions to be in alignment with your values or changing your values to be in alignment with your actions.<\/p>\n
Of course, you cannot do either until you identify your governing values.<\/p>\n
This is not difficult, although most people spend a lifetime remaining consciously unaware of their governing values.<\/p>\n
By identifying and prioritizing your current governing values, you will be able to:<\/p>\n
As you can see, governing values must be identified before goals are set or it becomes all too easy to establish one or more goals that are in conflict with your values.<\/p>\n
Take the common example of the super-achieving, small businessman who spends a lifetime building a successful business and devoting little time to anything else. When he looks back, instead of having a feeling of accomplishment, he mourns the fact that his marriage fell apart after 20 years and he has never had a close relationship with his children. One important personal value to him was family, but he over-looked the conflict in his values until it was too late.<\/p>\n
Having neither business nor family as his important value was neither right nor wrong; he just never understood how necessary identifying his governing values was to living a balanced life.<\/p>\n
The truth is\u2026 you can<\/span><\/strong> have it all. Surprised? To live your life in accordance with your governing values does not require sacrifice. You sacrifice only when you are not living your life in accordance with your values. So recognizing what is and what is not important to you is the key. You will be surprised how much easier life becomes after you create and prioritize your governing values.<\/p>\n Truthfully you already have your governing values. But having them and identifying them are two different matters. Examining your life and facing up to your actual values may be one of the most difficult, though rewarding experiences of your life. In fact, this is such a critical activity that I usually suggest to people that they spend five to seven hours analyzing their values and goals.<\/p>\n To get you started on this demanding process, let me walk you through a scenario, originally developed by James W. Newman, author of \u201cRelease Your Brakes!\u201d, that will help you reach inside and discover what these values are.<\/p>\n I was first introduced to this process at a Franklin Quest time management seminar when I was only 21 yrs old.<\/p>\n Imagine that I\u2019ve come to visit you at your home, and I brought with me an I-beam that\u2019s about 120 feet long. In case you don\u2019t know what an I-beam is, it\u2019s a steel beam that is used in construction. A cross section of the beam looks like a capital \u201cI.\u201d If you turned it on its side, it would become an H-beam.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s suppose I\u2019ve got this I-beam lying in the street in front of your home.<\/p>\n Now, imagine that I\u2019m standing at one end of this I-beam, and I ask you to take your place at the other end, and then when you get there, I reach into my wallet and pull out a hundred-dollar bill. I have to shout a little bit-120 feet\u2019s a long way \u2013 but I shout, \u201cHey, if you\u2019ll walk across this I-beam without stepping off either side and get here in two minutes, I\u2019ll give you one hundred dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n Would you come? Well that\u2019s up to you to answer, but I have yet to have one of my clients turn me down.<\/p>\n Now I\u2019m going to change the scenario a little bit. And to do so we\u2019re going to have to go back to a Pre \u2013 9\/11\/2001 era.<\/p>\n I\u2019m going to take this I-beam and put it on the back of a truck, and we\u2019re going to drive this truck to New York City to the twin towers of the World Trade Center. I have mounted on one of those buildings a crane that will let a cable down, pick the I-beam up off the truck, lift it between the two buildings, and set it on the edge of each building 1,368 feet above the pavement. The beam is just long enough to allow 12 inches extra on each side. Now just to make sure it doesn\u2019t fall, I\u2019m going to bolt the I-beam to a little bracket on each building.<\/p>\n Because of the expanse between these two buildings, the I-beam is bowed just a little. It\u2019s drizzling rain and the wind is blowing.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s imagine that you\u2019re on one building, I\u2019m on the other and I shout through the wind and rain and say, \u201cListen, if you walk across this I-beam and get here in two minutes, I\u2019ll give you one hundred dollars.\u201d Would you come now? If you would, you\u2019d be the first person I\u2019ve ever met that would cross the I-beam for one hundred dollars. Now, why won\u2019t people cross the I-beam for all that money?<\/p>\n For the simple reason that they value life more than they value money.<\/p>\n Now, let\u2019s change the scenario again. I\u2019m not a nice guy anymore. I\u2019ve kidnapped your daughter and I\u2019m holding her over the edge on my side, and I say \u201cListen, if you don\u2019t get across that I-beam right now, I\u2019ll drop your daughter.\u201d Would you come now?<\/p>\n When the scenario becomes very personal, the concept of personal values becomes incredibly clear, and we realize that there are very few things for which we actually would cross the I-beam. Money has value, safety has value but love of a child has far greater value.<\/p>\n What would you cross the I-beam for?<\/p>\n These are your governing values.<\/p>\n On August 4th,<\/sup>1974 a man named Phillipe Petit actually did crossbetween The World Trade Center, not on an I-beam but on a high wire.<\/p>\n In a recent interview Phillipe was asked: \u201c<\/strong>Did you plan ahead of time to try to profit from your walk between the Towers?\u201d<\/p>\n His response was: \u201cNo, I didn\u2019t plan to ahead of time, and I actually didn\u2019t try to afterwards either. I said no to all the endorsements and TV commercials proposed to me, and to all the movies and book deals offered to me, although I could have become very rich and famous two hours after my walk. But I said no to every offer.\u201d<\/p>\n To this response he was then asked: \u201cWhy was that? Were you a hippie or a bohemian?\u201d<\/p>\n His response was: \u201cNo, I was just an artist who knew what he wanted to do. I never wanted to use my art to sell beer or a pair of sports shoes. So, it was very easy for me to say no. And plus, my goals in life are not to see a bunch of money grow bigger. I never had any money in my life, so it was very simple to say no to lots of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n To this answer the interviewer asked: \u201cThen what would you say you did value in life?\u201d<\/p>\n Phillipe answered: \u201cMy goals in life at the time were the same as they are today. I am fighting for my visions in many fields. This means not only on the high wire, but as a movie maker, as a writer, as a lecturer, as a street juggler\u2026 I continue to try to do what I think is meaningful and beautiful to do. It is very difficult for an artist to create. But I\u2019m trying to do that, and that\u2019s what goals are; to continue to express myself and hope that it will inspire people.\u201d<\/p>\n Clearly money is not one of Phillipe\u2019s core values.<\/p>\n What are your values?<\/p>\n Understanding your core values will enable you to choose the dreams that should come first on your dreams list. The accomplishment of those dreams and goals that are in alignment with your top five values will be the most satisfying and personally rewarding. This is where 80% of your available energy and time should be spent.<\/p>\n Time is always limited. You will get the greatest sense of satisfaction when your time is spent on those objectives, projects, adventures and relationships that you value most. Therefore, it is important to prioritize your values once you discover them. It is you and only you who can decide what is important in your life. Why spend your time doing anything else?<\/p>\n I strongly challenge you to identify and prioritize your governing values.<\/p>\n First, go through and list each of the values that are important to you. Second, prioritize those values from most important to least important.<\/p>\n There is no right or wrong answers, so just follow your gut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What are your governing values? Do you care? Should you care? Ideas and beliefs about the relative importance of things in your life are called values. For example, If you value security highly, choosing to leave your job and start your own business might be unlikely or could cause a great deal of stress \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":878,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[12,67,68,45,69],"class_list":["post-35","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-millionaire-mindset","tag-brad-gillies","tag-first-things-first","tag-governing-values","tag-true-wealth","tag-what-matters-most"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/bradgillies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/bradgillies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/bradgillies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/bradgillies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/878"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/bradgillies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/bradgillies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/bradgillies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions\/39"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/bradgillies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/bradgillies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/bradgillies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}