Values and Goal Attainment
Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.
— MAHATMA GANDHI
I was recently listening to a conversation of J . Surendran of CEO Success Gyan with well known author Dr. John Demartini. I was quite intrigued by the explanation given by Dr Demartini on values. That made me interested in exploring his book “The Value Factor” and seek answers to the questions like What values really are? Why are they so very important? How does value shape destiny?
Right from the word go, the book hooked me and helped me understand the importance of values. In this blog, I make an attempt to decode the importance of values as given in the book.
What values really are and What they are not?
Dr Demartini makes a point that most of us start listing abstract qualities:
honesty, integrity, trust as values . Few of us refer to a set of religious beliefs,
a patriotic ideal, or a code of morality as our values. The author argues that these are merely social idealism's — socially acceptable ways of thinking and behaving.They are not really our personal values.
So what values really are ?
True values are very unique just like our fingerprints or retinal pattern. They determine what are very important to us. You may value reading books,listening to music, playing cricket, traveling, spending time with your family, working to climb up the corporate ladder. They are the like internal compass that will take you the people, place or actions that are fulfilling and away from anything that are unfulfilling.
Values are intrinsic — they are within you. No external party or force — parent , teacher, spouse, children, coach, leaders — can define your values. You and You alone can discover your own values. It is possible that two individuals may share similar values but they may not be the same. For example, two individuals may be interested in movies, one may like romantic movies and the other may prefer thrillers. It is imperative for us to understand and fulfill our highest values to lead a fulfilling life.The values may not always remain the same. It may change with time.
When something is valuable to you , you are continuously looking for opportunities to fulfill that value. In 2011,when the thought of buying a house crossed my mind and became all important for me, I started seeing hoardings of flats for sale, advertisements in newspapers, builders and property developers suddenly propped up into my life from nowhere. I started mobilizing my energy to take advantage of those opportunities. I am sure you may have experienced on similar lines. When something is of value to us, we bring all our mental, physical, and spiritual resources to make sure that we fulfill what we truly seek.
Our highest values determine your
- Attention — what we notice,
- Retention, — what we remember,
- Intention — what we intend or act upon
When we hear people saying that they are not able to focus or concentrate on something, one can assume that it is not very important to them.
VALUES AND GOAL ACHIEVEMENT
Once you become aware of your highest values, you develop the power to achieve anything that you want. This helps you develop the synergy between patience, integrity and leadership abilities
Patience: When you are aware of your highest values, you develop the patience to achieve them. You are prepared to wait as long as needed to realise your goals. You develop perseverance for attaining the goals. You do not give up mid way and do all it takes to realise it.
Integrity: When goals are in alignment to your values, the words, tone and action gets aligned and integrated. This leads to single minded focus and intention and goal attainment becomes easy.
Leadership: Your inner leader is awakened by values. When you are pursuing the highest values that are all important, you become clear and certain on what you want to achieve.You find yourself confident in the path that you choose to take and are inspired to lead others who may also be inspired by or along that path.
In conclusion, it is highly unlikely that your achievement and highest values are in-congruent. If there is a goal in your life that you have already attained or on the path to attainment, you can be certain that it reflects the things you value most.
