Tag: Ethics

Building Calm Confidence

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

I saw footage online of a Park Ranger standing in front of a wild male elephant who was clearly angry and looked ready to charge. The Park Ranger only had a thin stick to defend himself with. He raised his arms openly either side of him and stood still and calm. He gave nothing for the elephant to react to, and seeing no danger the elephant went away.

To me this is the essence of calm confidence. It is confidence in yourself regardless of what you are faced with. It comes from testing yourself, knowing your limits and having a deep understanding of your values, your beliefs and your ethics. It also comes from developing a level of skill that allows you to handle whatever comes your way. It is not boastful confidence or aggressive confidence, it has a stillness that cannot be shaken. This is calm confidence.

Don’t Always Set Goals

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

In life we need to set goals, progress is an essential aspect of living a fulfilling life. If we had no progress we would feel a sense of stagnation and a lack of motivation. Goals are important, but sometimes they are a reflection of who we think we should be. There are goals that we think we need to achieve in order to be a success, after which we will be happy.

Success does not automatically equal happiness. If the success is in something that does not align with our fundamental values, for example, then it can never really be happiness inducing. What we need to understand is what happiness and success look like for us, based on our values, beliefs and ethics.

Sometimes we also set goals in order to feel like we are working towards success, but in fact we are avoiding figuring out what we really want. Doing the work of figure out who we are and what we want out of life can seem too difficult, so we take someone else’s model of success, or the model that is currently seen as popular, and tell ourselves it is what we want. In a way it is a form of procrastination.

So, set goals, but do the hard work of figuring out what you really want out of life first.

Taking Responsibility

Leadership, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

This week Conservative MP David Davis stood up in Parliament and commented on how Prime Minister Boris Johnson has not shouldered the responsibility for the actions he has taken and that he should go.

I am not going to get into a discussion about what the UK Prime Minister should or should not have done, but the point David Davis made applies to us all. He meant it to be something leaders do, but we are all leader in some capacity.

When we make mistakes or make errors in judgement, the right thing to do is to take responsibility for them having happened and to fix them, in whatever way we can.

It is a measure of our integrity that we act ethically, even when no one is watching.

2022 Goals: Living Your Purpose

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

It is one thing to figure out what your Purpose is, but it is another to act on it. To live by your Purpose takes courage and determination, because it can put you at odds with people in your life and can require you to make some difficult choices.

Step 6 in the Pathway To Fulfilment is Living Your Purpose. Once you have gone through Acquiring Wisdom, Self Mastery and Defining Your Purpose, if you do not live your Purpose it will have all been just a theoretical exercise. In order to live well and have a fulfilling life, you have to live by your Purpose, once you have defined it.

So, what will you do this year to live by your Purpose?

I appreciate that you may not yet have defined your Purpose, but you can work on it this year. While this important work is being undertaken you could figure out your principles, beliefs, values and ethics and live by them. These will be guides to how you live your day to day life.

Once you have defined your Purpose, however, you will be ready to set your sights on your north star and make big decisions on how you want to live your life over the next months and years.

2022 Goals: Defining Your Purpose

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

There is a lot of talk about finding your Purpose and then everything being good in your life. It is not as simple as that, but it is important to figure it out.

Step 5 in the Pathway To Fulfilment is Defining Your Purpose. This step comes after Step 1 and 2, where you firstly Acquire Wisdom and then develop Self Knowledge and then Self Mastery.

This process involves figuring out what your beliefs, values and ethics are. Then looking at the reason you do everything you do in life. Behind each reason is your Purpose. My Purpose is to help others live well.

So, what will you do this year to work on defining your Purpose?

You could look at what principle you already live by, you could define your beliefs about the important things in life, you could figure what you value or what your ethics are.

The Missing Piece Of A Life Well Lived

Happiness, Success, The Fullfilment Framework

“People who truly understand what is meant by self-reliance know they must live their lives by ethics rather than rules.”

Wayne Dyer

Our Beliefs

We all have our own beliefs, things that we believe to be true. It might be that all children are precious or that the environment needs to be protected or that money is the route of all evil. You may agree with some of these beliefs but maybe not all of them. Our beliefs are part of what makes us who we are, and also what links us to other people; we gravitate towards others who believe in what we believe. This is human nature.

Our Actions

Our actions in life are often directly related to our beliefs. If you believe that being kind is important then you will often be kind to others, for example. However, often our actions are triggered by our emotions and are reactions to the immediate situation we are in. Our character plays a part too, but our actions are not always aligned with our beliefs. We might believe that we should take care of the environment but find it hard to give up on our big fancy car that guzzles fuel.

The Missing Piece

There is often a missing piece between beliefs and actions, and that is ethics. Ethics are moral principles we hold as important, which extend our beliefs into a code to live by. If we have a strong ethical code then our actions will more robustly align with our beliefs. It takes effort to put together an ethical code for ourselves. First we must clearly define our beliefs through self-exploration, by asking ourselves deep questions about what we believe and then putting our beliefs down on paper.

Then once our beliefs are clearly defined we need to reflect on what the ethical extensions are for each belief. For example, if you were to believe that it is important to be kind then the ethic of that would be something like to treat others as they wish to be treated, sometimes called the platinum rule. Your actions would then reflect this ethic and the route belief more consistently.

In order to live well, we need to live intentionally, with purpose. This is the importance of figuring out your Why, your overriding purpose for your life, but this is built on top of your beliefs and your ethics, which is all built on deep self-knowledge. It is to know yourself intimately and have the courage to live by your beliefs, your ethics and your Why. A life well lived is a courageous one aligned with who you are and how you can help those around you to live their best life. Fulfilment in life comes from living well, so join in the fulfilment revolution and figure out your beliefs and your ethics and have the courage to live by them.

Something To Think About

What are your beliefs and their corresponding ethics, and how will you bring these into your life?