34 – The Power of a Value System

BY STAN KONTOS

Did you know one of my greatest inspirational moments was when I read how Benjamin Franklin developed himself to such an incredible world changing level? Do you want to know what he did to become a world leader? Well here is one of the key things he did… he developed his value system. What is a value system? It is a series of emotional states that create behaviours that dictate what we value in life.

So for example, if we say we value our health then logically our behaviours will be to eat healthy, think healthy (minimise stressful thoughts), exercise daily, drink alcohol moderately and have a program for managing our health (prevention is better than cure). Hence, if we say we value health and we display the behaviours as well, then we are living congruently. If we say though that we value something (like health) but do not display the behaviours then we are incongruent and not really serious about our proposed value.

So it is with other things we value in life such as love, family, friends, giving, happiness, wealth creation, leadership, and so the list of values goes on and on.

Benjamin Franklin realised that value systems require daily attention to create habitual behaviours and it would take about a month before a behaviour became permanent – that is a habitual force in one’s personality.

I have been working on my values lately to further strengthen my personality and the last month have focused on a daily basis to ensure I display the following 4 key values each day;

1. Love & kindness – I always look for ways to make people feel special whether it is buying them a gift, buying them a meal, giving them a helping hand, complimenting them, displaying positive energy toward them and so forth.
2. Courageous – this past month I have looked for ways to get out of my comfort zone and face any uncertainties “head on”. Items  like undertaking a larger investment than normal (something that stretches me), speaking out and challenging when I think someone is being unfair, or going out of my comfort zone and powerfully addressing problems that have come up.
3. Encouraging – this may link to number 1 somewhat – always looking for ways to be uplifting to people and getting them to focus on what is possible rather than focus on what is stopping them from achieving things (a very powerful method in my coaching and mentoring)
4. Generosity – stretching out of my comfort zone in giving larger amounts of money to necessary or needy causes and learning to feel good thinking bigger in this area of my life. Also continually thinking of ways to give money, knowledge or time to everyone I am about to meet or who become attracted into my life.

So what will be the 3-4 key values you will focus on in the next month over the festive season? Will it be happiness, health, abundance, contribution, love, kindness, expansiveness, leadership, or other value systems?

I encourage you to write down 3-4 values and monitor yourself each and every day for a month. Perhaps get someone close to you to give you an honest assessment how you have been going and whether they can see your internal development coming through? And of course always spend time with people who have developed very powerful value systems to learn from them.

Stan Kontos