Posts Tagged ‘success’
Always Stick to Your Principles
Our personal integrity determines how we behave when there isn’t anyone else watching us. Will we cut corners, or will we live by our values? There are compounding consequences to our self image each time we compromise our beliefs.
They say that it can take as little as two weeks to make or break a habit. It’s important to always remember that it takes a lot less time than that to annihilate a lifetime of built-up integrity. When you live by a belief system, your actions are guided by this on a daily basis. You won’t just go out and hit someone with your car if you value human life. Also, you probably wouldn’t decide to quit your job because you just didn’t want to work that day.
These examples might seem farfetched. Really, who would ever think of doing such things? You’d be surprised. When our integrity and personal standards are under fire, we certainly won’t just get up one morning and decide to chuck it all in. At the times when our integrity and personal standards are put to the test, we shouldn’t choose to throw it all away. There are a series of steps leading up to leaving our principles behind. It’s necessary to keep ourselves in check in order to keep that from happening.
In the movies, when the bad guy is finally caught, he looks like an ordinary person. The Bad Guy usually tells the police that he’s really a good person, and of course, he never intended to steal a few billion dollars from his company and the public at large.
Manning our principles is one of those twenty-four hour career opportunities – one chance to succeed, and many chances to fail. Our principals are not coming under fire all the time, but only when we least expect it. Something will happen, at some point, and it could be a pivotal point in our lives. It’s like seeing the man in front of you drop his wallet as he attempts to put it in his pocket. Do you pick it up and give it back – or keep it, thinking he should have been more careful?
The defining moments are the little ones. Each little decision changes us somehow. At work, our boss may ask us to let something slide for the “greater good.” We may wrestle with the decision, but in the end, most people will usually decide to go along, just to keep the job.
With each compromising decision, a little more of our integrity is chipped away. It becomes easier to give in each time. What we don’t realize is that we no longer look at ourselves in the mirror – so to speak, and for the same reason, we seldom go against the status quo for fear of being labelled as a hypocrite. In such situations, our principles deteriorate and become almost completely fluid.
If you’ve felt that way, it means you still mourn the changes that have brought you to such a dismal point. Regaining your integrity won’t be easy, especially around those for whom you compromised your ideals. However, with the help of truly understanding and trustworthy people, your self-image can be restored – and you can take control, begin again and rebuild your life.
Alan Gillies is the Founder of Learning 2 Live, an online Lifestyles resource which mixes business with pleasure, covering a number of Lifestyle topics which include Relationships, Health, Wellbeing, Career, Travel & Coaching. Alan has extensive hands on experience across a wide range of business disciplines including Coaching and Mentoring, Change Management and NLP.
John Wooden: Coaching for people, not points
http://www.ted.com With profound simplicity, Coach John Wooden redefines success and urges us all to pursue the best in ourselves. In this inspiring talk he shares the advice he gave his players at UCLA, quotes poetry and remembers his father’s wisdom.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes and “Lost” producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10
Duration : 0:17:37