Monday Motivating Mindset

THE HYPE

This weeks Motivating Mindset will help you live with more purpose and integrity.


THE CHALLENGE

Your Mindset challenge this week is getting in the habit of asking yourself:

"Do my highest values still serve me?"


THE PROMISE

Ask yourself this question as many opportunities as possible and you will become more valuable, to both yourself and others.


THE TIPS

Tomorrow morning first thing before you get out of bed ask yourself the question: "Do my highest values still serve me?"

Take a few minutes to ponder the question and the answer before your feet touch the ground.

What you are trying to determine is whether or not the values that you hold most dearly support the lifestyle that you most want to live.

To determine whether or not your highest values serve you, you must first figure out what your highest values are.

In order to figure out what your highest values are, you must first determine how you personally define value.

For the purpose of this mindset a value is a system or set of consistent beliefs and measures.

Values are considered subjective, vary across people and cultures and are in many ways aligned with belief and belief systems.

Types of values include ethical/moral values, doctrinal/ideological (political, religious) values, social values, and aesthetic values.

We derive many of our personal values from situations with the external world and these are known to evolve over time.

What you do with your time, how you spend it and who you spend it are but reflections of your values and these values tend to change as we get older.

Ask yourself the question: "Do my highest values still serve me?" to start the process of taking a personal inventory on the values you have accumulated.

For example, if one of your highest values is to be organized, is this reflected in how you live your life? Does being organized serve your life.

If the value supports or serves your life, evidence of this beneficial relationship will be clearly visible.

In the above example, you should be easily able to recognize how the value of being organized has resulted in more peace of mind and less stress in your life.

Since you like feeling less stressed and having more confidence and peace of mind in your life, being organized is a value that serves that need.

Therefore, you would be able to state with confidence and conviction that organization is a value that effectively serves your life.

The point of the exercise is to uncover any unsupportive values that you have adopted over the years that no longer supports the lifestyle you want to live.

Ensure that any values that have been derived from particular groups or systems, such as culture, religion, and political party are still in line with your highest aspirations.

Asking yourself "Do my highest values still serve me?" is the first step to successfully evaluating your values.


THE SECRET

Most of our values and belief systems are determined between the ages of 7 to 11 years old.

As a result, personal values developed early in life may be more resistant to change.

Personal values are influenced by one's family, nation, generation and historical environment.

Personal values are subjective and not universal; always neutral, and are never inherently good or bad.

This is to say that to value peace is not more noble, effective or favorable than the value of making money.

It is our associations with making money and with peace that determine the good or bad feeling of our actions.

This is not to say that the value concepts themselves are not universal, merely that each individual possess a unique conception of them i.e. a personal knowledge of the appropriate values for their own genes, feelings and experience.

Another way to look at whether your values are contributing to the lifestyle that you truly want to live is to switch around the question.

Instead of asking whether or not your highest values still serve your lifestyle, ask yourself whether or not you still serve your highest values.

The question to sit down and honestly ask yourself is: "Do I still serve my highest values?"

"Do you still happily serve the values that best support your life?"

The best way to tell the truth and get an objective opinion is through your actions.

Do your actions indicated that you live in principle with your highest values?

A "principle" is often referred to as a primary source, a rule or code of conduct.

A principle value is a foundation upon which other values and measures of integrity are based.

Therefore to become a person of principle, is to become a person of their word, a person of integrity.

Do your past actions indicate that you live in integrity by the values that you have identified earlier?

Are you willing to act on a daily basis by the values that you hold highest?

In the organization example, are you living by the value of being organized? Is this value reflected in your daily actions?

In the example of being organized... Do you have a place for everything? Can you find everything in its place?

If evidence of these actions are not present, then perhaps you are not serving your values, in this case organization.

Do not become alarmed when you uncover values that no longer serve you or actions that no longer serve your values.

Celebrate the new found information for the gift that it is. The gift is awareness.

Awareness is the first step of change. In order to change one must first become aware of the need to.

When you discover that you are no longer living by your values then awareness become the first step in correcting it.

When you discover that your values are no longer serving your life you can then find new ones that do.

If you are not already acting on your values then the question "Do I still serve my highest values" will help you uncover the gaps and contradictions in your thinking.