What About Values?

I wanted to take today to speak about a topic that I feel is extremely important in the life of a leader, values. It is in the genetics of a leader to want to conquest and set out on a journey of exploration. I myself have the personality that is filled with energy when I think about new possibilities and ideas that can be explored. Exploration, conquest, passion are all wonderful qualities in a leader, but we must be careful that before we set off on any great conquest we must be willing to identify some bedrock things that we will not compromise in our life.

Life is ever evolving and ever changing and it would appear to be a difficult process to identify some things that will never change in your life, but I believe that a little bit of work on the front end will help us determine the course of action we take in the midst of a crises. One lesson that I have learned is to identify your values over the course of time, and not in a speedy matter. If we are to hasty in our choice of values then we will choose things based upon our current circumstances. It is far better to have a short list of values, and stick to them as opposed to creating a long list of desires, yet not fulfilling them.

Values will help you identify what is at the core of who you want to be. They become the road map and the guide to decisions in life. We live in a day of relativity. I believe the reason for this moral relativity is because we tend to stay on the surface because we have not identified what is core to who we are.

Although defining values may be a daunting task, it saves time and emotional stress. For example, if staying out of debt is a value of mine, then when it comes to purchases and opportunities that come my way I can clearly determine whether or not those are choices I can make based upon it lining up with my value.

When we leave ourselves open to having to cut through the fog of decisions on the spur of the moment we will never have a clearly defined path to get us to our destination. Values are the road map to get us to our destination. We would never consider going on a long journey without a road map, yet many of us live our lives without the road map of values clearly defined in our lives. Let me encourage you to take this year to define some core values in your life. Then when difficult times come, live out of values and not out of emotions.