Values are Greater than Motivation

In my musings over the weekend, I returned to some thoughts that I was working through back in 2016. I was reading Awaken the Giant Within, by Tony Robbins. It’s a 500+ pager that took me the better part of that year to read.

One of the biggest benefits I gleaned from that book was taking the time to really think about and define my personal values for my life. What do I hold most important? Secondly? Third? And so on.

For me, health and growth (in all areas, including my relationships), openness/expressiveness, and love/warmth/patience ranked within my top three.

Here’s a little summary from the book that I found (if you choose to check out the rest of that summary, be patient as the webpage loads slowly):

The Book in Three Sentences

1. Any time you want to make a change in your life, the first thing you need to do is to raise your standards and believe you can meet them.
2. We must change our belief system and develop a sense of certainty that we can and will meet the new standards before we actually do.
3. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.

The Five Big Ideas

1. The three decisions that control your destiny are: 1. Your decisions about what to focus on. 2. Your decisions about what things mean to you. 3. Your decisions about what to do to create the results you desire.
2. By changing any one of these five elements—whether it’s a core belief or rule, a value, a reference, a question, or an emotional state—you can immediately produce a powerful and measurable change in your life.
3. Everything you and I do, we do either out of our need to avoid pain or our desire to gain pleasure.
4. It’s not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.
5. Focus on where you want to go, not on what you fear.

When we align our values with the results we want in life, and then align our actions with those values, we then get those results. It all becomes a part of who we are, versus simply something we do.

For insight on getting clear about the results (success) that you want, check out this vlog I did on Mindset + Habits = Success

Values are greater than motivation!

This is A MILLION TIMES more effective than relying on external motivation alone. Insert any external motivating factor you’ve got in there. Yes, there is a place for those, and I’ll call them the starting points. But then what happens when the external motivation wanes?

I encourage you to do some of the deep internal work around this. I found that I valued health so highly because I wanted a great quality of life for the duration that I get to experience it. Continue to ask yourself “why” until you get to the core reason of the matter. 

Action Items:

1. What are your top 3-5 values? (Admittedly, I came up with 11 .. I didn’t want to leave anything out. So, don’t feel restricted).
2. What is an action you need to take that you have been putting off? (Can be directly related, or not. Up to you).
3. Do that action! 🙂 Break the inertia.

Remember: Values are greater than motivation!

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