Your Identity Foundation Starts with Daily Principles
Each of us makes a statement in the way we live day-to-day. Many times these are absent from our Instagram posts or Facebook pages, as they are more subtle and profound. However, there’s a bravery in practicing our values consistently - even if they seem illusive - while evaluating their validity, and even researching possibilities of improvement. This is the base of our Identity Foundation.
Life’s dynamic nature makes everyone’s development both rich and fulfilling, as well as muddy and downright confusing. It’s almost like every year presents a new version of ourselves. An upgrade - we hope - influenced by learnings, rewards and failures. To make sense of it all, I sat myself down to write my ‘truths’, or daily principles. There were many, and the following are the thirty I found most significant.
- Take action over talk
- Get the job done without a fuss
- Build confidence over time, not overnight
- Streamline morning routines
- Minimise possessions, and worries
- Overlook trends or fads
- Save to invest, invest, invest
- Control spending habits
- Negotiate … why not?
- See ‘no’ as a starting point
- Take opportunities without hesitation
- Ask the hard questions
- Regard asking for help as a sign of strength
- Leave situations where not valued
- Listen fully to advice and let it sink in
- Let people ‘save face’
- Lead with compassion
- Celebrate others’ victories
- Compete with ourselves, not others
- Acknowledge and appreciate compliments
- Speak up when wronged
- Refrain from gossiping
- P-a-u-s-e
- Use both logic and intuition
- Learned to control emotions
- Be comfortable being and travelling alone
- Try fixing or making things
- Take care of both mental and physical well-being
- Seek out challenging, even uncomfortable, situations
- Test limits to extent comfort zones
We all have our hard days, and not so graceful days. But by reminding ourselves of our daily principles, we can ground our identities when they’ve swayed. And they will. This is why my list is here to stay in Internet-land so I can review them when required. Whether you’ve been looking to change your daily principles, or validate ones you once through odd, I hope these can be of use. Do this exercise my strong, determined self-willed reader and see where it takes you.