Believe that you can choose how to lead your life.

When you fully believe that you can choose to lead your life in a direction that’s meaningful to you, you are on the cusp of greatness. Too many of us move through life as if we are in a trance.

We go with the flow because we falsely believe that we have to. Trance mode means towing the line, focusing on what we think we have to do, versus truly understanding what we value and how capable we actually are.

I’m not advocating irresponsibility at all. Instead, I am talking about the value of being fully responsible to you first. That puts you in the best position possible to take responsibility for others. Being responsible to yourself first means knowing what you value, what you want, and how you want to contribute. Then, you demonstrate the courage necessary to commit to making your intentions reality. That’s leading your life.

Your values are the principles or qualities that are important to you—like fairness, family, humor, freedom, justice, humility, faith, or adventure. Your values are deeply personal, and whether you know it or not, you’ve been developing them your whole life. They’ve been inspired by your family, your religion, or powerful experiences, like the loss of a parent, the birth of a child, or a significant and hard-earned accomplishment. Values also evolve over time—what you valued as a teen may be very different from what you value as an adult.

What do you value most right now? For me, it’s financial security, career challenge, a peaceful family and a fit body. Those values connect to my goals. When I am living most in sync with my values, the vast majority of my actions connect to at least one of them. When I am straying off the path to success that I’ve defined, it’s because I’m acting haphazardly or in a way that is obviously inconsistent with what I truly value.

When your values are active in your life, they can serve many purposes, from providing the hard line you don’t cross (I’m not going to engage in this accounting practice because I think it’s misleading), to showing you the way forward (I’m not going to have different standards for our team—I don’t think it’s fair). Values can serve as your North -Star; guiding you when you’re making some of the life’s important decisions (Should I take over the family business? Should I shift industries at this stage in my career?). A quick consultation with your values can lead you to a good choice. When you make difficult choices that align with your values, you’ll always find yourself sleeping better at night. On the other hand, when you make decisions without regard to your values, you can wind up asking yourself: Why doesn’t this choice feel right? Many poor choices can be avoided if we think first about our values before taking intentional action.

Intentional Action How Leaders Succeed by Courtney Lynch - Change This | 149.02

Courtney Lynch is the best-selling author of Leading from the Front and the new release Spark: How to Lead Yourself and Others to Greater Success, co-authored with Angie Morgan and Sean Lynch.