Habits = Values in Motion

Tom Corley boats - crop

What are values?

Values are major pillars that act like a foundation for the life you live. They are the things that are most important to you. As an example, my values, in their order of importance, would be:

Immediate Family
Good Health
Friendship
Learning
Financial Security
Mentoring Others
Extended Family

Knowing your values is important because your values are drivers – they set in motion other things like your dreams, the vision of your ideal life, passions and habits.

I’ve come to realize, thanks to my research, that values give birth to the habits we adopt in life. As an example, because of my values, I’ve adopted the following habits:

Frequent Hello Calls to my kids (immediate family), my friends (friendship), my brothers, sisters and in-laws (extended family) and important relationships I would like to grow or maintain (financial security).
Exercise every day and eat a lot of vegetables in order to maintain healthy microbiota (good health).
Daily reading (learning).
Tip of the Morning to Ya daily writing (mentoring others).

Therefore, if you have good values, you’ll forge Rich Habits and those Rich Habits will create a good life.

Conversely, if you have bad values, you’ll forge Poor Habits and your life will be miserable.

For example, if one of your most important values is Sex, you might forge the Poor Habit of Infidelity. This will undermine your marriage or relationship with your significant other.

Or, if one of your most important values is Partying, you might forge the Poor Habit of Drinking Too Much Alcohol. This could spiral into alcoholism, which ends up destroying your life and the lives of those you love (family and friends).

When your values are off, your habits will be off and your life will be off.

The key to creating the ideal life is, therefore, is to make sure your values are good values because those good values will force you to adopt good habits.

Your habits are really nothing more than daily activities built around your values. Or, more concisely, your habits are your values, in motion.

Be Sociable, Share!