"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." Mahatma Gandhi
We chose Dr. John Demartini's Value Determination Process to help Uncover Your Highest Priorities "values".
He is one of the most trusted and reliable sources of human behavioral management and change. Someone I trust and a free tool that will help you align your own internal compass. On a personal note, this process was integral for me in staying the course over 7 years as this SelfCare project came to life. After being just an idea 7 years ago. It helped me navigate the natural storms and chaos in life. Pandemics, Break Ups, Financial Stress, Family Events, and everything else in between.
Your underlying private voids drive your overlying public values.
Knowing your unique hierarchy of values, or highest priorities, is the most important place to start if you intend to expand to the next level of your empowerment.
Whether you wish to grow your finances, leadership, influence, or your business, whether your intention is to transform your relationship, health, or any area of your life, it all starts with understanding what’s highest on your Values.
Dr. Demartini’s Online Value Determination Tool. Take action today, the only cost is your time (~15 minutes)
Why Are My Highest Values Important?
The more important a value is – the higher it will be on your hierarchy of values and the more discipline and order you will have associated with it.
The less important a value is – the lower it will be on your hierarchy of values and the less discipline and more disorder you have associated with it.
Your present purpose or mission for life will reflect your present highest values.
"Values" have many words. Here are Evidence based 3 lists to share some insights.
End Result - What's in this test for you?
After you finish the assessment of the value, you will get a personalized diagram on the left. By knowing your values, you can use this internal compass to help decide whether you align or wish to partner with people or companies like the one on the left. Alignment of your internal compass with an awareness of patterns of behavior will help you decide whether to lean in, lean out, go left, go right and even pause to witness it all for just a minute.
The best piece of advice I was given was
"To work with people based on the way they treated people who had less. Eg. The janitor, the waiter, themselves, and even people in the community"
Why? Because patterns of behavior are the truest expressions of our internal values. Not words, behaviors. This includes our own. As an example, we might say or think that we value family, yet we spend 80 out of 168 hours per week. We might say or think that we value travel, but when was the last time you went on a spontaneous adventure.
"Watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.” Buddha
7 Ways to Align Your Words & Actions to Achieve Results with Julie Chance
Leadership and Team Development | Building Winning Teams that Execute with Ease and Flow
We’ve all experienced it – with ourselves and with others – those instances when what is said and what is done just doesn’t line up. And when it happens it's damaging. It damages credibility and erodes trust – in ourselves and with others. So what can you do to remedy the situation? Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as saying, “Do what I say – not what I do.”
1. Awareness - Identify the Cause
There are a lot of reasons individuals, teams, and organizations fail to take the actions they say they are going to take. Some of these include:
- Lack of commitment
- A belief that it is not possible
- Competing priorities
- The action is not aligned with values
- A habit is driving the behavior
The solutions, when there is a lack of commitment, is different, for example, than when the problems result from competing priorities. Therefore, the first step is isolating the cause.
2. Direction - Get Clear on the Desired Outcome
If the desired outcome is not clear to everyone that needs to participate in making it happen, the necessary actions won’t be clear either. Fuzzy outcomes lead to fuzzy actions. Help people see what is possible if the desired actions are taken (this is the pretty picture of the future). And what is probable if there is no change (this is the not-so-rosy picture of what the future holds given the current course).
3. Communication - Clean-up Your Language & personal habits
I don’t mean get rid of the curse words (although you may want to do that as well). Our words drive our thinking and our thinking drives our actions. The words we use and the questions we ask ourselves and others create a focus and set a direction. Here are three words you may want to eliminate or greatly reduce the use of and words you can use instead.
- Replace “but” with “and”“You have a point but I can see Jim’s point.” vs
- “You have a point and I can see Jim’s point.”
- Replace “should” with “want to _______ because”“I should make those follow-up calls.” vs
- “I want to make those follow-up calls because I really want to make my goal this month.”
- Replace “I am going to” with “I am”“I am going to launch a new service this year.” vs
- “I am launching a new service this year.”
4. Action negates negative emotion - Take a “Big Gulp” Action
A “Big Gulp” Action is an action that is designed to get attention and signal ourselves, our team, and the Universe that we are serious. What constitutes a “Big Gulp” action varies from person to person and from situation to situation. However, generally there will be a high level of anxiety at the thought of taking the action and right after you take the action you will ask, “Holy cow, what did I just do? (And you probably won’t say “cow”!)
5. Power of 1% - Make One (Small) Change
Don’t try to change everything at once. Make one change – often it just needs to be a small change – to get the ball rolling. For example, research shows that keeping a food journal just one day a week leads to a reduction in weight.
If you need a change in your team’s behavior or are making an organizational change, isolate the one thing that needs to happen right now to move you one step closer to your desired outcome and focus on changing that one behavior.
6. Repetition is Mastery - Make it a Habit
Habits drive a lot (maybe even most) of the actions we take every day. There’s a good reason for this. It is a matter of survival. If we had to consciously make a decision about every action we take every day our brains would explode! We develop habits so we don’t have to make decisions about those things we do on a routine basis. The key is to be intentional in the habits we form and the routines we help our teams develop. There is a lot of research on creating and changing habits. A good place to start is by reading The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life and In Business by Charles Duhigg.
7. Build Your Willpower Muscle by creating enabling environments
Research has shown that one of the keys to staying on course towards a goal when we hit a roadblock or barrier is to identify the potential barriers ahead of time and develop a written plan for dealing with each one. Combine this with the technique of zooming out to see the bigger picture when you come up against a barrier and you have the keys to supercharging your self-discipline and willpower.
Next time you find yourself or your team talking about what you are going to do yet not taking action, implement just one or two of the strategies above. You will be amazed at how quickly your words and actions will begin to align and the results you will achieve as a consequence of this alignment.
SUMMARY
Align your internal compass before you speak. Witness, be curious, ask questions, and then offer solutions or simply act and let your patterns of behavior speak louder than your words ever could.
Then simply "Do what you say you're going to do. And try to do it a little better than you said you would." Jimmy Dean.
CALL TO ACTION
- Take the Values Assessment (15mins)
- Share your results and insights with the SelfCare Community Here
About Dr. John Demartini
"I’m Dr. John Demartini and it’s my inspiration to share the wisdom I’ve synthesized from 1000s of years of knowledge from theologians, philosophers, Nobel prize laureates, and other great minds in science, business, finance, and health. Stand on the shoulders of giants and implement this great wisdom in order to gain the ultimate advantage in all 7 areas of your life."
~Dr John Demartini
REFERENCES
With all our REFERENCES We have done our best to reference everyone’s expert opinions, peer-reviewed science, and original thoughts, HIGHLIGHTED IN THE TEXT. So that you can go direct to the source as you read.
Here are is our referencing process
Here are the 8 points of reference that we consider with each article. We consider what is known, unknown, nature, your innate wisdom, science, ancient wisdom, evidence-based practice, the hierarchy of evidence, and even the energetic laws that we are yet to understand or quantify.
