Accomplishing Goals and Your Values
If you know your values, many decisions you will have to make on the way to accomplishing your goals will be much easier. Make no mistake about it, determining your own values isn't always easy. Putting them in order of the most important first, is even more difficult. But it is definitely as important and should be something you take serious time and effort to do. An excellent example of why this is so happened last night.
Last night, the television show Survivor finished their season in Fiji. For those who care, Earl, a nice guy, won. And Dreamz, who made a promise, didn't keep his promise. It was this last part that provided much of the drama for the last few episodes.
The Set Up and the Promise
The promise was this. Yau-Man a 54 year old gentleman, and a crafty strategic player, won a $60,000 pickup truck in one of the episodes. He gave it to Dreamz, who owned no vehicle at all, in return for the promise that Dreamz would give Yau-Man an immunity idol(which makes a player safe from being voted out of the game), should Dreamz get it, in one of the final rounds. Dreamz took the truck and made the promise. This was the first and only monetary exchange ever for a promise on the Survivor show. At the time he made the promise we believed him, and I think he believed it, too.
The Actuality and the Aftermath
Dreamz got the immunity idol, didn't give it to Yau-Man, and Yau-Man was voted out of the competition in that round. He said it was a matter of strategy. Everyone has his or her opinion on that. The remaining Survivors were taken aback. The former Survivors, who had been voted off the island and were now members of the jury, showed hostility, outrage, and moral indignation toward Dreamz and his choice to renege on his promise.
Where the Hierarchy of Values Comes In
Survivor changed the rules. When Dreamz made his promise, he had little expectation of making it to the final round. With the new rules, he had a shot at the Million dollar prize. Money or Honor.
Money becomes less of an issue when you know at rock bottom that you are safe and you have hope for the future. What I'm talking about is what you feel emotionally. You can be rich and still have fears of poverty. Dreamz talked about setting an example for his son, but Dreamz came from a background of financial and emotional instability. The other Survivors, many of whom are college educated and well employed, thought keeping your word is more important. In their hierarchy of values, that would be the right decision for them. Of course, none of them were put in the position to test their values, so talk is cheap.
What are your values? Does family come before loyalty to an employer? Does money or acceptance rate higher than honesty? Do your values sometimes conflict with one another – do you value kindness and honesty both and which is of higher value?
In case you are wondering, I would have kept my promise. I have been between a rock and a hard place before, and I have studied my values long enough to know which ones come first.
Would you have kept the promise? What would you have done, and why?
