5 Basic Rules for Building Principles
This article is a brief addendum to “The truth about wasted lives and hard work… 5 questions worth asking.” I would recommend you start there for better context.
What are principles?
Principles are the guidelines by which you operate. They act as the foundation of who you are and how you operate. They help define who you are as a person.
Here are five basic rules for building your own:
1. Principles should act as guidelines for how you will act or react in certain situations
They act as an automated decision maker in that when something goes against your principles then the decision is already made for you. Let me give you an example. Two of my personal principles are “I don’t make excuses” and “I am responsible for the outcomes in my life”. Often when I find myself unhappy with a certain outcome my tendency is to assign blame (usually to others) and make excuses. Using the principles above, I do two things. The first is I realize that what I am doing is making an excuse and I don’t make excuses. It’s not who I am, it’s not how I operate! The second is that I have already accepted responsibility for what the outcomes are in my life before they have happened. There is no one else responsible. I am. Me. And by doing this I don’t need to waste time in assigning blame or making excuses. I refuse to do so! They stop me from doing anything but accepting responsibility and working towards a solution.
2. Principles should be based on who and where you want to be.
They keep me oriented towards my goals and make certain decisions for me automatically. Simply put, I use principles as the guidelines within which I operate that keep me oriented towards my goals. They expedite the process to reaching my goals by ensuring that I am acting consistently in a certain way for an extended period of time. One of the keys to success is consistently doing the right thing over an extended period of time. Principles make sure I do this, and in many cases, automatically.
3. Principles should help shorten or eliminate the decision-making process based on predefined criteria
Another reason these are so important is that the more clearly defined your principles are and the more you refine them the less you risk decision fatigue. Studies have shown that over time our ability to make decisions deteriorates. As we move through the day faced with decision after decision, our willingness to carefully analyze details to make the best decision drops off. Do you ever wonder why no one wants to decide where to eat dinner? It’s because you want to be done with making decision. By that time in the day you may have made hundreds of small decisions and by that point you just want someone else to pick what to eat!
Is that the point you want to be making decisions that will affect whether or not you reach your goals, whether or not you are successful? Of course not. The chances of failure increase exponentially.
4. Principles should not be written in stone, as you gain experience and learn new things, your principles should grow to reflect them
Not everyone needs to have as many principles as Ray Dalio laid out in his book “Principles” (although I would certainly recommend you read the book) but establishing some clear guidelines that are aligned with your goals will directly influence the level of success you experience in your life. Ray Dalio has spent a lifetime building his principles. He didn’t start Bridgewater with every principle he would ever have. He built them over time through his experiences. And by constantly learning and growing, especially from particularly painful events, he was able to experience tremendous success.
5. Principles should reflect how you want to act (and not necessarily how you have in the past)
The reality is that you already have principles, even if you aren’t aware of what they are. By defining them it should do two things.
The first is make you more aware of the principles you were using without even being aware of them. Like my example above, when I implemented my principle, “I don’t make excuses”, it made me far more aware of when I was making excuses.
The second is that it should enable you to replace those poor principles with far better ones that you chose. If you have not actively defined them, then odds are you are allowing your environment to determine what they are.
It is not an instant process, but actively choosing your principles allows you to be aware of the situations when you should be using them and over time replace poor principles with far superior ones you have purposefully chosen.
Here is an example of some of the principles I operate by. While you can certainly chose to adopt any of them, it is important that your principles are based on the rules above and authentic to you.
leaderAbout the author:
Dan’s passion is taking his experience and helping you apply it to your day-to-day life in order to define and achieve personal success. He has decades of experience as a leader and mentor through his time in the military and law enforcement. Interact with him on twitter @dantruex
