The Principles
As discussed last week, our principles are our foundational values. They are the truisms that show how you live your life. Without them, we are unhappy.
But principles don’t just have to be about you. Principles can explain how the world works. For example, if something in the world occurs in cycles, the details of that can be a principle. Whenever you find yourself lost, return to that principle for clarity.
So, the difference between values and principles is that values are important to us specifically. Principles are a truth that can’t be debated within the system of belief it is contained in.
Our principles are based on our values, but principles help us make decisions that align with our values. If our values bring us happiness, our principles are the step-by-step process to pursue our values and hence our happiness. Principles enable us to act on our values.
Types of Principles
If you were to break down different aspects of your life, how would you separate them? For example, your job could be one area, your relationships another, and your well-being. Each of these areas will contain key principles that will make decisions within them easier to make successfully and happily. Principles aren’t contained only in these examples. They are complicated, develop over a lifetime of thinking, and can interact with each other.
1) Ethical Principles – Closely aligned to your structural values. Principles that help us do what is right, such as honesty and integrity.
2) Personal Principles – These are like your surface values but allow you to act upon them. Can be based on beliefs that we have. But be aware these beliefs could have been influenced by those around us, or our environment. Be aware of looking deeper, to explore what you truly find important, not what has been picked up through your relationships with other people and our environment. Examples include pursuing what you believe your passion is, even if it isn’t financially practical.
3) Professional Principles – These are principles that relate to a specific field or career. I have principles for my stock market trading and investing. Whenever trading, I always risk a specific amount of my total capital in every trade. I never deviate from this, because if I do, things go wrong. They enable the best decisions to be made as we develop our principles from experience in our fields until we set upon a principle that makes sense and works.
4) Spiritual Principles – These relate to our well-being or can be linked to belief systems such as religion. If your religion promotes forgiveness as one of its important pillars, then this will be an example of a spiritual principle.
Discovering Our Principles
1) Consider your values. How can you create principles to make your values actionable? Take your values to principles that can guide you and that you can show in everyday life.
2) Encounter a problem or decision? Create a principle until you don’t encounter any problems or decisions that a principle doesn’t cover.
3) Ask others. Who do you look up to? If they use any principles, ask yourself if they would be applicable in your life.
4) Reflect on mistakes. Whenever we make a mistake, this is actually a good thing. We can figure out what went wrong and improve next time. A principle can record this mistake, and detail how we will try to avoid it next time. If the same mistake occurs, tweak the principle again, until one day it won’t, and we will have created a principle.
Acting On Our Principles
Can principles keep us too penned in? If we always have a framework to abide by, how can we develop and grow?
Principles can give us a general sense of direction towards our values. To locate what is right and wrong for us, and act on what is right. But we need to be careful to not allow our principles to give us tunnel vision. So, be open to new ideas and experiences, and always consider different people’s perspectives. Actively seek them out and you might learn things about yourself through them.
Your ego can be a powerful enemy. If you develop principles that you become too embroiled in, you can begin to judge others who don’t possess the same principles. The magic of principles is that other people can have a completely different set of principles to you, but they are living a life true to themselves through their own values and principles. Celebrate that these people are living lives that bring them happiness, even if it isn’t what would make them happy. So be willing to challenge yourself and your own principles. This will only make them stronger.
One key principle is that happiness is a choice. By discovering ourselves, and by exploring our values and principles, we can better understand that we can choose happiness through our everyday lives. We can show gratitude for the small things, even the inconveniences could bring adventure or a new perspective. Try to be happier than yourself yesterday. And enjoy the process.