Okay y'all, I'm about to tell an embarrassing story about myself. A couple days ago, I had a flight from San Jose, Costa Rica to Mexico City. Or...I thought I did. I bought a ticket from San Jose, CALIFORNIA instead, so I show up and they told me the silly mistake I made, and I had to rebook. I was a bit stressed, so I immediately booked an available cheap option. What I didn't check was that the layer was relatively short, and the 2nd flight was technically a new flight. So, I end up panicking during my short layover, and realize that I booked for Toluca - an hour from Mexico City.
What did I learn from this? I need to adopt new principles as it comes to traveling - (1) check everything twice (to, from, date and time, layover, other provisions), and (2) never panic when making decisions - you always have more time than you think, and the cost of making a mistake is higher than the cost of taking a bit more time to delay.
Here's another situation. Picture yourself as Nicolas Otamendi (in white below), a defender for Argentina in the World Cup finals against France. In the 79th minute, Randal Kolo Muani (in dark
blue) from France got ahead of Nicolas and was in position to score France’s first goal to Argentina’s 3 goals. Do you risk fouling Randal in the penalty box to stop a potential goal?
While we think of situations like whether to take money left on the ground (an ethical situation) as situations requiring principles, my situation and the World Cup one above also require the same type of thought.
Principles are the rules we create for ourselves, based on our conception of (1) what is true, (2) what is right, and (3) what we want. We all have our own “game” of life, with different values, goals, and priorities. How we play our game of life might be completely different than even people who you think are very similar to us. The cat (?) below seems to live life to the fullest as a big spender - principle = YOLO! (You Only Live Once!)
Let’s get you to think about some of your principles that maybe you weren’t conscious of. Answer the questions for yourself:
You see a piece of clothing you like. Do you buy it?
You are really tired but a bunch of your friends are getting together, which which doesn’t happen often. Do you go?
You find out your company is expanding into a business that requires some questionably ethical tactics. You are in a different department and are 2 levels below the person accountable. What do you do?
You are on a crowded New York subway and the CDC still recommends wearing masks indoors. Many people are wearing their masks...do you?
To the last bullet in particular, we end up considering factors like our own and others’ health, comfort, social norms, government guidelines, and more. Our different decisions will reflect our principles.
A good sign someone is sharing a principle of theirs is hearing them recite slogans, like “Work hard play hard”, “listen to the science” or “never skip leg day”.
A formal definition of principles
The dictionary defines principles as “a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.”
Think of our principles as our algorithm for what decision we should make at a given time, if we are thoughtful about a decision. Eventually, principles can become our habits, moving from conscious to almost automatic - this can be for the better (treating wait staff respectfully) or worse (defaulting to your favorite fast food).
Why have them?
Cornell researchers say we make on average 35,000 decisions per day! Now that does include silly things like which socks to wear, whether to pay attention to a phone notification and whether to put sugar in your coffee - but other decisions are significant.
How many of those decisions do you think about?
How many of your decisions are getting you what you really want?
How many decisions do you regret?
Reason 1: Results
These decisions you make every day also compound into the future, be that your health, relationships, or career. Imagine the difference in results if you were clear about your principles and conscious of when you should apply them?! A good set of principles that give you the results you want can be considered your “success formula” in life.
Principles also produce consistent results - it’s the desirable version of the phrase “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” - principles is wanting those same results by taking the same actions.
Reason 2: Efficiency
Principles will also make you more efficient so you can focus your energy on what is most important to you. Ray Dalio says, “Principles themselves are a form of leverage--they're a way to compound your understanding of situations so that you don't need to exert the same effort each time you encounter a problem.” Many of us have decision anxiety or delay, and having principles helps us to
move through decisions faster. Just think about some of our decision-making strategies:
Impulsiveness and instant gratification
Delegating
Avoiding/Deflection (picture on the right)
Compliance with social pressures
These are assured ways for you to not get what you want.
Reason 3: The “right” decisions
Having clear principles also gives you a clear moral compass, so no matter the circumstances, you do what you know to be right. You also display strong character - integrity, honesty and responsibility. These qualities will leave you with a clear consciousness, better relationships, more success at work. Perhaps principles and character are two sides of the same coin - “I’m a principled person!”.
How to write principles
Principles are fundamental truths or propositions (repeating here…) that should help you make decisions - they come in between a stimulus and your response. Therefore, we need to define the stimulus - whether it’s something you should be doing constantly, or an “if”, like: "If the job offer can’t make my salary requirements…”. You can also do a cause and effect: “In order to get 6-pack abs…you must have a maximum 1 drink per week.”
Sometimes principles also sound like beliefs and/or habits: “successful people wake up earlier than 6 am”.
Defining your principles
Think about the goals you have in life. What do you want? You will want to build principles around what you want, in all parts of your life. Perhaps think about career, relationships, joy, community, health, lifestyle, hobbies.
Prioritize defining principles for difficult situations over easier decisions, or situations that require you to balance multiple priorities, like your budget. List out these situations before writing principles.
Health Situations:
How do I choose my healthcare and doctors?
How do I approach preventing health issues?
How do I know whether to see my doctor about an issue I’m unsure about?
What and who do I trust about health information?
How do I decide what to eat?
How much money do I spend on things that impact my health? Such as skincare, my bed and pillows, etc.
Some health principles I hold (click here to read more from my post on health):
You are in charge of your health, not your doctors.
Investing (time, money, effort) in health pays dividends.
Better preventative than reactive.
Better thinking long-term than short-term (unless in an emergency situation).
Your environment is extremely influential, so take stock of how it influences you.
Acknowledge genetics are important, not an excuse.
Emphasize process and habits over goals.
I should probably check these against some medical professional opinions...
Here are some of the principles for achieving joy by Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu in their book, Book of Joy:
Perspective: Observing the same event from two steps back and from different angles makes us less anxious and happier. Egocentrism actually appears as the best indicator of a short life expectancy.
Humility: Embracing our unity; our similarity to one another heals our solitude and anxiety.
Humour: A sincere laugh is the most direct path connecting two people. Humour translates to trust that we love each other and do not aim to belittle or offend one another.
Acceptation: Accepting what happens to us is a sign of elevation in spiritual life, it is about
going with the flow of life instead of being in opposition to reality.
Forgiveness: “Forgiveness is the only way to heal and release the past and free ourselves from it”
Gratitude: “Every morning, as you wake up, think of how lucky you are to be alive”.
Compassion: To care for someone else’s well-being is a source of happiness — when you feel useful for someone you love, your own distress shrinks away.
Generosity: We shall give, and we shall receive. This is how the flow of energy naturally goes. Generosity is the natural prolongation of compassion.
Below I am sharing a few of Ray Dalio's principles for success that I adopted as my own, and why the principle is important to me:
Principle | Importance to Me |
"Everyone has at least one big thing that stands in the way of their success; find yours and deal with it." | The results we get in life are usually a pattern, and unfortunately some bad habit that we might have developed. Mine has been struggling to define what I want and being paralyzed in the face of infinite choice. |
"Go to the pain rather than avoid it." | I love this because it reminds me to lean into things that are scary, things that are hard, things that take time. These will always be more worth it than the easy path. |
"If you are open-minded enough and determined, you can get virtually anything you want." | I have really not believed this at all for most of my life, and I am going to keep reminding myself of this until I really believe it and act on it. |
Self-Assess your Principles, Test Them, and Share
It’s important not just to list a bunch of principles - review and refine them, test them out, and share them. A few ways to know you’ve written a principle important to you:
Is it true all the time for you?
Does it align with your values?
Does it guide decisions you make repeatedly?
Does it get you what you want?
Trying out the principles will be another way for you to see how they look in action. Principles written hypothetically might not stand the test of time and put under different stresses in life.
Lastly, I must say that I had a conversation with 2 of my best friends and we shared some principles just for fun. It was really enlightening, what we pay attention to, how we formulate our principles and the consistency by which we implement them.
Conclusion
Principles are a gold mine for you to draw a more direct line to the results you want in life. Is there a goal you really want to attain but you feel it’s out of your reach, or you don’t even know where to start? Try writing down some principles. I need to spend more time with mine, especially in making choices about what I want in life - perhaps my career change would have been much easier if I had some to begin with!
If you want to discuss developing a set of principles, feel free to reach out!
For Learning and With Love,
Chris
Sources:
Book: Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu
Book: Principles by Ray Dalio
Book: 7 Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen Covey
Blog Post: CBS News, How Many Decisions do we make every day?
Website: Principles by Ray Dalio
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