Sticking To Your Principles video | #6

Foreign. Hi, I'm Dr. Natalie, and today we are talking about sticking to your principles. I feel like this is an important one and this is something I learned later in my career, and I wish I had been guided earlier, but because I think it's easy to try to be someone else. It's easy to conform to what is happening around you or what you think you should or should not be. But as you get older, or maybe more mature or maybe more clear or aware, you start to realize what things resonate with you and your values and your principles and what things don't. So I think it makes more sense to do this at the beginning or when you're younger, of course, whenever you do it. Better than never doing it. But my point is you need to understand who you are and what's authentic for you because you don't want to go so far down a road that that doesn't sit right with you. Everyone has their own values and principles, and it's not something you can switch on and off. You can't switch them off. When you get to the office and be a completely different person, you might present differently and project a different personality, but your values are the same. And you'll know that when someone says something or does something or asks you to do something that is against your principles, against your integrity, you will notice, you will feel it, and that's something you carry with you for the rest of your life. You can't undo it or change it. So I think the sooner you're conscious of it and what you can and can't do, who you're trying, trying to be or don't want to be, have your principles and stick to them. And I feel like it's an important principle because it won't close doors for you. The right doors will open for you if you're clear and you are strong in your commitment to what is authentic for you. There are so many opportunities in the world. It might seem like, oh, there's only this opportunity. I have to take this deal, I have to take this job. Even though you know it does not sit well with your spirit, it's not what you believe in. You don't agree. You don't agree with the culture or the people or the way that they operate. Don't do it, because it just muddies your own water. And you're not going to be able to change your values later in life. You're going to warp yourself to try and fit in a system that doesn't sit well with you and you won't be able to succeed and thrive yet. If you went to the right opportunity that was in agreement and alignment with what you believe in in the world, you would go much further, much faster. And I think it's easy to see this in businesses and companies that operate from a principle base. There are so many businesses that come from a faith based. They are Christian values or mus values. They will or will not do certain things. They will or will not borrow money that no sits in Islamic banking or they won't sell coke or alcohol at their restaurant. There are so many small things like that. And you see the business still thrives. They are not worried about missing all the customers who want to go to a pork joint. They trust their principles, their authenticity and they stick to those values and the right customers come to them and find them. And I think that's a really good example of it. I think this goes even in any job that you have. If you have a boss that's constantly asking you to do something that you just know it doesn't sit well with your ethics, it's going to make your job harder, you're not going to be able to do it properly and you will not be able to succeed and shine in what you're doing. So I think being aware of your principles is the first step. There's lots of apps or exercises or coaches. You can go online and look at your values or write down some things that are important to you. Understand who you are as a person. I think a big part of self awareness as an adult is to know who you are. You are not all the bits and pieces you've picked up along the way. Your family, your friends, the society you live in, your church, your. Whatever has added to build you has affected you. But it's not who you are. Who you are is only decided by you. And so to first be aware of where you are, then you can see, am I really living to be the person that I am meant to be, the person that I want to be? Yes. My circumstances right now have forced me to agree to certain things I don't agree with. To like live in a way that I'm not completely on top, like 100% in alignment with, but I'm working my way out of it. Because if you're not aware about that, you just keep getting in deeper and deeper. And the thing with human beings and with life, all of us have the life we deserve. It sounds really mean, I know, but you have the life you deserve because your life is made up of choices. No One's life is just one moment. This happens. Yes, there are certain things or big things that affect your life. Yes, I took this job or I was in a car crash, or my family couldn't pay these fees. But your life is actually made up of the choices that you make. When you talk about, like, someone's health, someone will choose to eat a burger, someone will choose to eat a salad. And you can see on how they physically look, what their choices have done for them. I mean, that's the easiest way I think about it. But it's the same at work. It's the same in your personal life. Your life is built up of all the choices you make, and only you are making those choices. That's why you need to be clear on your own values and your own principles. So when temptation finds you, destruction comes to you. Opportunities arrive on your desk or on your plate. You are the one assessing, am I going to eat the burger or the salad? You have to be conscious and you have to be aware. Just say yes to so many things and then you're confused. You're going in seven different directions. I remember seeing Kim Kardashian talking in a video saying she realized at a point in her career she was doing adverts for diet foods and also for Carl's Jr. The burger company. And she's like, what branding is this? What message am I giving? I'm just taking money from everyone and saying yes and putting my face on something. And they're going in two completely different directions. She also had to assess, where is her own principle, her ethics, her integrity? What is the message she's trying to give to the people who listen to her and follow her? And I think it's an easy way to understand it when you have opportunities, when you have, should I go for this meeting or should I go for this after work drinks? Should I do this extra work? Should I do this course? Should I help my boss here where I see an error, or should I watch them fail? These are all the small choices in your day that seem like, tiny, like they don't have consequence, but these are the things that build into who you are as a person. Every small choice you make is what is affecting who you are. That's what you're made up of. You're not made up of what people have told you or what you're projecting to the world. You're made up of the choices you are making. And so in five years, in 10 years, in 20 years, even next week, you have no one to blame for your circumstances, but yourself. Because in any kind of difficult circumstance, you had to make a choice. There's the 80, 20 principle. 80% of the things that happen to us in life are coming from 20% of the things. 80% of the results you get are from 20% of your customers or for 20% of the work that you do. So you have to be very conscious about that 20%, because the effect it has is huge. I think it's a principle, but that's the truth. It's all up to you. Any good or bad situation that happens, a circumstance, a problem, an emergency, an opportunity, how you respond to it is your choice. Your attitude, your research, your network, your support system, how much energy you put into it, that is all in your control. But the first step is the choice. Which way are you going to go? Because every day, we are all filled with choices, life, decisions, decisions. If you're walking down a path of life every single day, it's go left, go right, go left, go right. It's you deciding. If you go right, you go right, you go right, you go right. You're gonna find yourself somewhere over here on the big map of things. If you're trying to get over here now, you found yourself over there, whose fault is that? And that's why it's important to have your principles and know your values, because it guides you. It's like a compass. And I say this to business owners all the time. You need to know your mission. You're opening a shop and you're going to sell shoes. Now, your friend says, I have a deal. We're going to sell bananas. Are you going to start putting bananas in your shoe shop? You have to make these decisions. What is your goal? What are you trying to achieve? What is your mission that should guide you? What is your why? Why are you really waking up every day to open this shop? What is this money really going to do for your family's life? You need to know that, and you need to understand, are these bananas going to take me in the right direction, or is this going to be a distraction that now kills my market, confuses my customers, and takes me two steps backwards? You have to be able to make those choices, and that's why it's such an important word. And I feel like choices and values are so closely linked because you make choices based on your values. That's the kind of person that you are. Human beings are so predictable because once you know their values, you know what motivates them, what drives them, what they're scared of. What their ambitions are, and that's the direction they're going to keep going. These days, the AI software can predict all of that from you. It will look at all your social media data and can plan out the next 10 years for you and tell you, this is the kind of person you are. This is something a lot of recruiters know. They can meet someone, interview them, and in 10 minutes they can tell you, this kind of person is going to be a hard worker. These are their challenges, These are their weaknesses. This is where they'll succeed. They are a good culture fit for you. Yes or no. That's their job. Because human beings are predictable. So you yourself, you're predictable. You're based on your values. Most of our choices are unconscious. Our mind is just making them for us automatically. If you're the guy who eats burgers every day, the truth is you eat burgers every day. That's the kind of person you are. But it's based on your values. So you need to introspect and assess that for yourself and see who is the kind of person I am, what are my values and other choices I'm making in alignment with my values. Sometimes you don't quite know why your life isn't working out. You don't know why you're not in the shape that you want to be or your job is not going the way you want to be. I get that a lot sometimes with people who are like, I've been in this job for seven years, but I don't get promotions. I don't understand why other people are passing me. Yes, there are technical things you can tell them, have you done this course? Are you qualified? What is your emotional intelligence? Your relationship with your bosses? But sometimes it's a misalignment of values. You can't succeed in a job if you don't believe in the company. You think the company is terrible, what they do. You don't believe in the product, you silly. And you're there for seven years and you wonder why you haven't got a promotion. But I don't say it out loud. Yeah, but you believe it. So that's the energy you're working with. There are small things that will affect you, and it comes down to choices. You will not die if you eat a salad instead of a burger once a week. You know, practice it, Try it out. See if that feels more in alignment with you. And I'm using this as a metaphor. See where you're making choices that are not in alignment with your values, because that's where you're losing energy, you're losing motivation, and you're losing time. The sooner you start to be in alignment with your values, the more momentum you'll gain and the faster things will happen for you. And there is fear, of course, in letting go of something. But fear is doubt. Fear is what's slowing you down. You have to also believe and know and trust. That's why it's important to have clarity in these values, because that's what's going to propel you and guide your decisions. Then you start making small, small choices that are better every day. So, introspect. Do a values exercise. Try to understand who you are. Do some journaling. Talk to a friend. See how you can better understand yourself and your own motivations, your own drivers, your own fears. Because that is always working in the subconscious of your mind and it's directing and guiding you whether you are aware of it or not. So the sooner you're aware of it, the sooner you can take hold of that situation and move forward proactively. And that's how you will gain the momentum that you want to see, and results will become easier in your life.