Establishing your Values – Professionally

Time for a book plug – a book that I absolutely enjoyed and that taught me a lot is “The Infinite Game” by Simon Sinek. It teaches more about values and implementing them than I probably ever could. But this is my post, so I won’t steal from that book.

Values, on initial check, seem to be the things that are valuable to you. As I’m thinking about it, I would say that is inaccurate. Values, in the sense we are discussing here, are the things that determine what is valuable to you. They are the dividing lines between what you will always do, what you will never do, and everything else. Note, I didn’t say what you will never feel or what you will never think, I said what you will never do.

Here’s something else I heard: “Thoughts become words, words become actions, actions become habits, habits become character, character becomes destiny.” It’s difficult to stop a thought from forming in your mind, and it’s almost impossible to stop a thought from appearing in your mind for an instant, but you have a lot of control over your words, and increasing control over every other step in that process. It’s just more and more difficult to implement that control as actions become habits and so on. So try to stop them at your words, and definitely at your actions and you’ll be good.

The best way to do this is to establish values. Values are things like “I will never make a decision on something based on the race of those involved”, or “I will never lie in order to make a sale”. They are also things like, “I will always sell product based on what I believe is best for the individual buying the product”, and “I will always own my mistakes.”

To establish values first think about things that people have done that you find completely disgusting and try to analyze what it was the brought them to that point. Make that thing a value for you to never do. Then do the opposite, find things that people do that you find heroic or honorable and analyze what brought them to that point. Make that thing a value for you to always do, when possible. That sort of plan will set you up for those things that will guide you throughout your carreer.