Are you daily testing and strengthening your core values, the truth in your life, or are you unwittingly strengthening a flawed or underdeveloped, or unproven ideology? How do you know?
Let me play the devil's advocate in this blog: Are you telling me you’ve got everything right, locked down when it comes to your values? In my opinion, if you answered that with a confident yes, you're wrong.
Your personal identity and your core values are intended to be developed, challenged, and grown daily. Use them or lose them! Physically, mentally, and spiritually it’s the same for all of us as humans; there is no neutral. We are either coming forward or in atrophy in all three of those areas in our lives.
As a culture, many of us wrote down our mission statements and core values, hung them on the wall in the board room or the locker room, and then forgot to use them. We become driven in the pursuit of success, staying motivated or creating the perfect system without first doing the work to build the foundation of the values as the position on strength to operate from.
“Positive values anchor us through adversity and ground us in success.” Jim Hensel
There is only one way to prove value in your life; that’s by pressure testing it. You must purposefully test the truth of that value in your life outside your comfort zone, outside the environment you can control. Put your truth to the test mentally, physically, and spiritually to see if that value holds up as a foundational truth in your life. I hate it, but what I’m saying is just true; it’s easy to believe something when we’re comfortable. Think about it, when you’re comfortable, what does it matter what you believe in? Life has taught us that we will either ground ourselves through our values in extreme adversity, or if those values aren’t authentic, we blame somebody or something else and abandon those values under pressure proving what we said we believe was just a slogan or not defined enough to work in the adversity or opportunity we are facing.
“The truth will set you free and becoming a refining power in your life, or the truth will crush you like gravity.” Jim Hensel
You test your values by living them out. The proof is in the pudding; as they say, if it’s truth, it will work; you do it by practicing it and living it. You have to get outside your comfort zone, and you have to take what you think you believe and actually apply it in life. How do you know what you believe is the truth? Are you telling me you’ve never made a mistake, are you telling me you don’t make mistakes and that you’re perfect? Are you telling me the people who taught you about what you believe are perfect and they don’t make mistakes? Of course not; that’s a silly, immature thing even to say. We all are fallible. We all make mistakes. That’s why it’s necessary, even imperative, to test the truth in your life continually.
The only real way to know how much weight you can lift in the gym is to train and lift the weight. The only real way to know if what you believe is worth a damn is actually to put it into practice. When you screw up, and you will say I’m sorry, fix it and move forward again.
“There is no power in truth; there is the only power in living and applying truth to your life” Jim Hensel
Knowledge about the right thing to do or learning about the truth is not the same as actually applying it and living it; knowledge and wisdom are not the same things. Nothing replaces experience and the perspective it brings. One of the most significant challenges in life is that experience and wisdom work together. It’s always a mistake to stay in your comfort zone and avoid pressure; it’s always a mistake to think that you have it totally figured out before actually putting it into action in your life.
You will solidify your values if you are willing to clearly define them and take the purposeful risk to test them in life! Start something hard and finish it. Whether it’s a workout, whether it’s the end of a hard day, it’s the end of the season, or the end of life, there will always be a new perspective and growth; that’s where your values grow, and the truth becomes obvious.
There are no formulas, only pressure, only facing adversity, only walking it out.
I believe there are primary foundational principles that we can start from that have been proven over time. However, I think that you are uniquely made, that you were put on this planet with a specific purpose. Your personal identity is unique to you; your talents, your abilities, the way you were raised, your story, your life experiences are all unique.
Be very careful with people who want to tell you what you should believe instead of coaching you to develop that skill set for yourself and your family. Stop disappointing yourself, do the work to define yourself, create the mindset skills necessary to take the courageous, purpose-filled risks necessary to live an extraordinary life. S&H!
Keep Coming Forward
Jim Hensel
