Okay, here is the bottom-bottom line. If you are honoring your core values you are more likely to be happy. If you are dishonoring your core values you are more likely to be miserable. Violating your own core values will lead to burnout at your job, in your personal life and on living.
To be a person of honor is to possess and display integrity in one’s beliefs and actions. This is most easily accomplished through one’s core values. If you have never performed a Core Values Inventory (CVI) I would highly recommend you do so. (To receive your free copy of the Core Values Inventory simply sign up in the box over to the right.)
Knowing ones core values will offer crystal clear insight as to who you are. This can be, should be, used as a guide when making both the large and small decisions affecting your life.
We all make choices. All of us will experience consequences as a result of our choices. If we choose poorly for ourselves the consequences are likely to be undesirable. Alternatively, choosing based on a true reflection of who we are will help to ensure more positive outcomes.
Core value guided decision making helps immensely when choosing a career, a particular job, a mate, friends, associations, even a home or a car. Deciding in this way, in favor of our own core values, promotes synergy between the individual and the life they chose to live and synergy promotes harmony.
Everyone has been confronted at some point in their life with a situation, decision or request from someone that goes against their inner compass or core values. Think back in your own life when this occurred. You probably said or thought something like, “I can’t do that” or, “This is not me” or, “That’s not who I am.”
If you decided in your own favor then you were honoring the core values which were being challenged. Afterward, you probably felt good about your decision.
If you went counter to what you were telling yourself at the time and made the decision to proceed against your better judgment then I am 100% certain you dishonored one or more of your core values.
Afterward, you probably felt bad about your decision. What was the ultimate outcome? How did the decision affect your life, positively or negatively?
Deciding counter to our core values can lead to lying, cheating, stealing, bankruptcy, relationship problems and all of the attendant negative consequences. Laboring in a career or at a particular job which violates our core values will ultimately lead to burnout. Burnout reflects immense personal dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
Before becoming sober, I was in opposition to my core values on a daily basis as an active alcoholic and I suffered mightily as a result. Years into sobriety as a successful, practicing family physician I became burned out because the demands of my job began to conflict with my core values.
In both instances, I had to return to my core values and embrace them as never before. When I did, everything changed for the better.
Self-inflicted or job related burnout is no state in which to live. It is impossible to live a life of purpose and passion burned out. The best way to avoid burnout is to celebrate and honor your own core values in everything you do and in every decision you make.
When you are getting ready to make a decision, large or small, do you consider whether or not the decision or potential outcome is in line with your core values? Have you ever taken an inventory of your core values? Can you name them?