Are You Violating Your Values?

Here's a short piece of my book, "Facing Reality", chapter 3, "Facing Who You Want To Become".

When a goal violates your values; a sacrifice must be made. We can sacrifice the goal or we can sacrifice a few other things. If you decide to keep the goal, here’s four alternative negative sacrifices that are made in its place.

1. Sacrifice Character To Pursue The Goal.

If we are pursuing a goal that conflicts with our character it will require us to sacrifice it. We may have the internal conflict of trying to justify to ourselves that this goal is okay and we can pursue it without deteriorating our character, all the while knowing internally that it most likely will. We will justify it to others of lesser character in an attempt to get some support and validation for our character sacrifice. Once we decide to pursue the goal anyways, things only escalate from there as our character becomes more and more susceptible to contorting into this lesser person.

2. Sacrifice Values To Obtain The Goal.

The next sacrifice is our values. As we continue in pursuit of our less than honorable goal, we find ourselves in situations where in order to keep moving towards it, we must sacrifice some of our values. Because their character is weakened this becomes the next justification; if any is even needed at this point. We continue grasping for the goal in hopes to obtain it all the while losing ourselves in the process.

3. Sacrifice Others To Claim The Goal.

Once we are able to see the goal at arms reach, we then begin to sacrifice those around us in order to claim it for ourselves. We will push others down in the attempt to lift ourselves up. You may be thinking, “no, I wouldn’t do that.” You're right, maybe who you are today wouldn’t do that because your character and values are intact and keep you grounded. But the person you become once you have sacrificed both your character and values does not have the same grounded foundation. That person will sacrifice others for the sake of themselves and their goal. They would sacrifice their loved ones, friends, co-workers, customers, and leaders in order to claim their prize. This may even come out in the form of taking credit for the goal. They may already have the prize in hand, but that’s usually not enough. They also want to take all the credit for the goal too.

4. Sacrifice Growth To Keep The Goal.

Have you ever known a manager who held a position for what seems like forever and not move up into the next position? This is often the case of a person who has sacrificed their growth in order to keep the goal. They don’t want to lose their position and are focused on maintaining rather than elevating. Once a person sacrifices their character, values, and others, the last thing they tend to sacrifice is themselves. This is all done for a goal that violates, deteriorates, and requires from us more than it will give to us. Sometimes the goal may be perfectly okay and not violate anything, yet it’s the way we go about obtaining it that is the real enemy. We can approach a great goal with the wrong methods and still end up sacrificing our character, values, others, and growth.

Ultimately, it boils down to you making the right decisions about what goals you want to achieve and who you’re willing to become in pursuit of them. Making a bad decision will yield bad returns, making a good decision will yield good returns. The decision is yours to make, the sacrifices are yours to surrender, and the outcome is yours to live with. Who you want to become is more important than the goal you want to achieve. We should always focus more on our growth than we do on the goal. Like John C. Maxwell said, “Growth doesn't just happen. If you focus on goals, you may hit goals – but that doesn't guarantee growth. If you focus on growth, you will grow and always hit goals.” Although I am teaching you a lot about goals, my aim here is to help you grow. If you achieve growth, your goals will take care of themselves.

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