Habits = Values in Motion

We build our habits around our values. Habits are really deliberate, repetitive actions spurred on by our values, meaning habits are our values in motion.

But what then are values?

Values = the things most important to us. They are our top priorities in life.

Sometimes our values are good and sometimes they are bad.

When our values are good, we automatically forge good habits, which produces a good life.

Good Values —> Good Habits —> Good Life

When our values are bad, we automatically forge bad habits, which produces a bad life.

Bad Values —> Bad Habits —> Bad Life

That’s the great secret to life.

Therefore, the starting place for habit change of any kind must always first begin with evaluating your values, or what’s most important to you.

Why?

Because you can’t forge habits that are in conflict with your values. You’ll just be wating your time.

Good Value Example

Let’s say that you have just survived a heart attack. Frightened, you decide that good health will now become one of your top priorities in life. Good Health, therefore, becomes one of your new Values.

Once Good Health rises up your list of priorities, you find yourself building habits around your Good Health Value:

• Habit #1 – You exercise every day
• Habit #2 – You eat healthy every day
• Habit #3 – You moderate your consumption of alcohol
• Habit #4 – You cut back on cigarettes
• Habit #5 – You cut back on all drug use

Two years go buy. You’ve lost 40 pounds and your Doctor reports that your blood pressure is down significantly, your blood sugar level is perfect and your heart is in excellent condition.

Good Values —> Good Habits —> Good Life

Bad Value Example

You were born and raised in poverty. Your parents, in order to keep you out of trouble, push you to play organized sports. One sport you particularly take a liking to isfootball. You not only like football, but realize you’re exceptionally good at it – you seem to have an innate talent for football. Because you like football so much, you devote many hours of every day to improving your football skills. You rise to become one of the elite football players in your state in football.

Colleges notice your exceptional football skills and you are offered and accept a scholarship to a premier Division 1 school. You excel under that school’s outstanding football program and are drafted in the first round of the NFL. Your pay is $3 million.

Suddenly, you’re no longer poor. Having spent most of your life in poverty, you want everyone to know that you made it, that you are now rich – you want to impress everyone with your success and newfound wealth.

So impressing others becomes one of your top priorities, or values, in life. New habits will automatically begin to spring forth:

• Habit #1 – You buy expensive things, like new cars, jewelry, watches, clothes, etc.
• Habit #2 – You spend money on lavish vacations
• Habit #3 – You spend money on expensive restaurants, where you tip big to impress those at the table with your wealth
• Habit #4 – You buy a big, expensive home in an affluent neighborhood, so you can show off your wealth

At the beginning of year two, you get seriously injured. Your football career, in the blink of an eye, is over. Despite your injury, your value system is still anchored in your desire to impress others. So, you continue spending money, trying to impress others.

Despite your best efforts to rehabilitate from your injury, other NFL teams are unwilling to give you another shot. Five years after your injury, you find yourself broke.

Bad Values —> Bad Habits —> Bad Life

Habits are your values in motion. The starting point for any significant habit change always begins by first changing your priorities – AKA your values.

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