Live a principle-centred life

BY DANIEL COLE

“Your life is a result of life’s principles that you either observed or violated.” How your life has turned out so far is as a result of a certain set of rules, principles, or beliefs you’ve lived by, either consciously or unconsciously. Sometimes, it only takes seeing a medical prescription to know what the patient is suffering from, suffice to say, the outcome of your life will always reflect the beliefs, ideals and principles that governed your life. 

Principles make an outcome predictable; if you don’t exercise, you become exposed to various kinds of illnesses. If you don’t get enough sleep, you put your heart at risk, you become susceptible to cancer, high blood pressure, forgetfulness, you gain weight, and your risk of having diabetes increases. If you don’t give time to study, train your mind, or invest in personal development, your approach to life will be from a position of ignorance, because you are ill-informed. You become easily swayed by views, opinions and seemingly sound doctrines. Principles will always give a guaranteed outcome. 

The law of gravity or the gravitational pull is a universal principle which does not take into consideration your status or social standing; how rich or poor you are, your religious belief, be it, Christianity, Islamic, Scientology, Buddhism, or any for that matter, if you act in defiance to the law of gravity, you experience the consequence. It doesn’t care what your personal views or feelings are, the law stands; what goes up must come down. 

Write out the set of rules you want to live your life by, principles you want to define your life around. Principle of honesty, respect, growth, spirituality, kindness, and morality. Principle of hard work and integrity. Principle of boundaries and accountability. Principle of a healthy lifestyle, time and financial management. Principle of godly and edifying conversation. The truth is, once your life is defined by these principles, and you live by them, certain things about you becomes predictable. 

An example of a principle-centred life, according to Lovina Thakkar, your friends are calling you to hang out, but you have other priorities, and you say NO. Your mother is scolding you, you get irritated, you too want to shout at her, however, you hold it back and choose to listen instead. Your friends tried to force you to drink, smoke, watch porn, but you didn’t. Your ability to now always go with everyone’s flow is a true hallmark of maturity, and reflection of life governed values and principles.

To earn the respect of others, let your life be governed by principles. A life of success is principled-centred. You are not being selfish by living a principled-centred life. It is your responsibility to control the trajectory of your life.

In his book, Principle-Centred Leadership, Stephen R. Covey wrote, “Effective people lead their lives and manage their relationships around principles; ineffective people attempt to manage their time around priorities and their tasks around goals. Think effectiveness with people; efficiency with things.”

To live a progressive life, you must govern your life around a certain set of rules and a well-thought-through ideal. Create a principle around conversation people are allowed to have with you and don’t give permission to others to cross those boundaries. You can’t get it wrong by choosing to live a principled-centred life.