What are your guiding principles? Not your moral principles – your guiding principles. They guide your decision-making, and they become especially relevant in trying times. That’s why it’s important to consider what your guiding principles are, so that you already have them when an unexpected hardship arises.

I believe everyone should have personal guiding principles, as well as guiding principles specific to their profession, their relationships, and anything else that’s important to them. Many principles will apply to multiple areas of your life, but this just reinforces their significance to you. Everyone’s principles are personal and unique to them.

And if you work in a company, or run a company, there should be clear principles intended to guide the decision-making of the employees. These are especially lucrative when an employee is at a crossroads. When lost in a storm, if not equipped with a compass, most will perish. If clear principles are communicated and exemplified by leadership, employees will often make the best decisions for the company, even if fatigued or overwhelmed.

This is my list of personal guiding principles.

It is a work in progress. I will continue to refine it for the rest of my life, most likely. It is handwritten in a notebook, and I decided to publish it here so I could share with you.

In no particular order…

• You don’t have to do anything, you get to do it.
• Assume positive intent.
• Life is play.
• Discipline breeds discipline.
• Everything is about the process.
• More questions, fewer convictions.
• Better questions, better life.
• Happiness is a choice.
• When you feel like you lack, give.
• Pain is inevitable, suffering is not.
• Never make decisions while emotional.
• The hardest conversations are the most important ones to have.
• Don’t talk about it, be about it.
• Being interested > being interesting.
• Pursue that which can’t be taken from you.
• Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
• Leave it better than you found it.
• The best way to grow is to put yourself in a situation that will demand it.

Which of these principles resonates most with you? Do you have a list of guiding principles or virtues? I would love to see what you’re striving towards! Tweet @ me or drop me an email at contactshelbysmith.co@gmail.com.