"Our principles are the springs of our actions; our actions, the springs of our happiness or misery. Too much care, therefore, cannot be taken in forming principles."
--Philip Skelton
When you have established principles in your life that you live by, you eliminate the trifecta of regret, Should, Would, Could. Eating that donut is no longer something you “shouldn’t” do. It is something you don’t do. Getting up early in the morning is no longer something you “should” do. You just do it. Remove the gray area in your life and establish principles. When there is an absence of principles, you leave each decision up to the feeling you have in that moment, and often, it is a moment of weakness. It is harder to say no to that donut when it is sitting right in front of you. It is hard to wake up early when you are in your warm bed and it is cold and raining outside. When you establish principles, you remove the subjectivity of the moment from the decision-making process.
Companies have mission statements for this reason. In times of duress when they need to make a decision on how to act, they can reflect on their mission statement to guide their decision. Work on developing your own personal mission statement and principles to live by.
You can start by identifying what is important to you: family, friends, health, career. Decide what is important to you and what values you need to live by to achieve success in that area of your life. If family is important to you and being a good husband is a part of that, what principles can you develop to ensure that you are a good husband? Making a principle that you always have a date night on the first Friday of the month eliminates the happenstance of that week or day. The excuse, “something came up” doesn’t exist anymore because date night is not a “nice-to-have”, it is a certainty. Its no longer, we should have a date night on the first Friday of the month, it is now, we DO have a date night on the first Friday of the month.
Establish principles for yourself. Reflect and understand where you want to be in life and where you are. What areas are you falling short in? What can you do to eliminate the fleeting emotions of the moment and solidify your personal mission statement?
Always Think, Never Settle.
