Life is lived from the inside out. At the very core of your personality are your values. What you become, or who you are, is largely shaped by the values you hold dear.
If your values are love, kindness, honesty, positivity, and sincerity, you’ll often show them in your life. You will exude love, kindness, and everything inside you.
Your outward life reflects your inner core values. The Bible says, “You shall know them by their fruits.” Your values are your fruits.
We all live by our values, whether right or wrong, and sometimes knowingly or unknowingly. People are mostly guided by the values they cherish.
We show what we value every day through how we live. The life you live today directly reflects your inner values.
Notice that most successful people have a positive outlook about themselves. They harbour positive values within their inner being.
So, if you want to succeed at whatever you do, you must learn to feed your mind and inner soul the right material.
If you feed on negative emotions, you will most likely produce negative emotions, and the opposite is equally true.
In short, your character is a total of what you feed on. The good thing about the mind is that it can be transformed.
If you want your mind transformed, feed it the right material. The Bible says, “You shall be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
The only way I know of renewing your mind is by reading and learning. Look, whatever you read sticks in your mind, and someday it will come out.
If you read wrong books, your mind will be transformed by them. One book I read daily is the Bible. It is full of positive affirmations. The Bible is actually my life’s guide.
You have to make a deliberate policy and have the will to change. Your daily actions are controlled, consciously or unconsciously, by your thoughts.
You may not have noticed it, but believe me, your thinking directly affects your character and general behaviour.
What you hold dear to your heart will always manifest. I often use the example of thieves; do you realise that no one is born a thief?
People just learn to steal, and since it can be learned, it can also be unlearned. Equally, no one is born with bad habits. They are formed along the way.
Nature provides us all with equal opportunities. For example, we all have 24 hours a day, 12 months a year.
The biggest difference is the way we seize the opportunities that come our way. Sometimes opportunities can be disguised as a “disaster”, say, loss of employment.
Most of the time, when someone loses employment, they moan and groan about it without realising it could be an opportunity to become self-employed or even look for better employment.
Improve Your Values
As I said before, you can learn and unlearn your values. The question is: how can you unlearn the bad values that have accumulated over time?
Over the past months, I have been focusing on changing some of my values by reading, listening, and watching motivational materials and attending personal transformation seminars.
This has changed my internal values tremendously. To this day, some of the things I once thought were valuable are actually worthless.
When you change your values and focus on building positive ones, you gain a sense of purpose and feel in control of your life.
Most of us are not fully in control of our lives and just go with the flow. Hence the frustration with life.
A positive mindset can create a sense of responsibility and help you enjoy life much more.
You feel less pressure, and you don’t panic when things go wrong. Believe me, things will always go wrong and sometimes be very messy.
The most important thing is how you react. Do you let the situation overtake you, or do you take control?
Most of the things that go wrong are actually within our control. I believe everything that happens to us happens for a reason, and it is mostly an opportunity to solve things differently.
However, this entails thinking outside the box. In fact, removing the box altogether. I always like to think of life as a journey.
When faced with a challenge, do I go back or face the challenge head-on? I focus on facing the challenge head-on.
There is always a solution to every challenge that comes your way. Remember that God always makes a way where there seems to be no way.
The Bible says “seek ye first the kingdom of God and everything shall be added on to you”. The Bible also says that “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
Therefore, a prayerful life is important if you want to be successful. Prayer and meditation on the word of God open doors.
Your values are the key components in determining your character. As human beings, our lives portray our core values.
Take stock of your life and see what you value most. The best way is to write down what you think your values are.
Now compare that with how you live your daily life. If your values are love, honesty, and sincerity, that’s likely how you treat other people.
You will always treat people with love and sincerity. I have also noticed that we form opinions about people based on our own character and past behaviour.
Take time to observe your life, and you will agree with me that what you value most will be central in your daily life.
Clarify Your Values
One characteristic of good leaders is clarity about their values. They know exactly what they want.
Remember that we are all leaders of some sort. You may not be in a leadership position, but you are the leader of “yourself corporation limited.”
The more clearly you know your values, the better person you become and the more happiness you experience.
Many of us have unclear values. If you want to succeed at what you do, you must write down a clear set of values you believe in.
These values should be engraved and aligned with your belief system. This is also true: most successful corporations have values they adhere to.
Your belief system also shapes your values. Remember that you can also learn or unlearn your belief system.
Our beliefs are mainly deduced from our past experiences and what we have read and seen. Some experiences can be directly linked to us as individuals or to someone we have seen or read about.
To be successful and develop a positive mental attitude, you need clarity in your values and belief system.
Personal development and self-growth are not a destination but a journey. We are all on the journey of life; however, the difference is how we enjoy it.
Enjoy Your Life
There is so much joy in doing the right things. I know for a fact that if you are feeling low and want to feel happy, try lending a helping hand to someone.
You will definitely feel joy when you see the glow of happiness on the other person. Humanity was created to help each other.
We can be the solution for many people around us. If you look around, you will realise that many people are worse off than you.
The onus is on you to make the best out of your current situation. Stop complaining and blaming people for your current situation.
Especially if you are over 18, you are fully responsible for your life. Learn to enjoy life by doing that which God created you for.
You have the ability and capacity to improve yourself no matter how bad the situation may look.
Life was meant to be enjoyed. As long as someone has the breath of life, they are not to be written off.
Never look down on anyone, no matter their current situation; instead, try to help them when you can.
They say as you climb the ladder, ensure that you look after those you leave below, as they will be able to catch you when calamity falls on you.
No offence, but I have noticed that people in higher authority tend to think they don’t need anyone below them.
Life is a vicious circle. You never know when someone will come and give you a helping hand simply because you helped them at some point in life.
You may not be the direct beneficiary of that help, but it could be your children or indeed someone close to you.
Some of the favours I have personally received are a result of my late father’s goodwill.
People have told me we have done this for you not because you deserve it, but out of appreciation for your late father’s good standing with us.
Conclusion
“Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals and values are in balance” – Brian Tracy.
One key area of personal development and success is knowing your values. Your values form an important aspect of your character. Your character will eventually drive you toward your life’s goals.
I encourage you to set goals for your life and just be a student of yourself. Know yourself as much as possible and take action to correct the areas of your life that you think need correction. Lastly, if this site encourages you, please feel free to share it.