Tony Robbins -Re-Awaken_the_Giant_Within

“Big Blue” into being one of the world’s largest and most successful companies.
What can we learn from all this? In our personal and professional lives, as well as on the global front, we
must get clear about what is most important in our lives and decide that we will live by these values, no
matter what happens. This consistency must occur regardless of whether the environment rewards us for
living by our standards or not. We must live by our principles even when it “rains on our parade,” even
if no one gives us the support we need. The only way for us to have long-term happiness is to live by our
highest ideals, to consistently act in accordance with what we believe our life is truly about.
But we can’t do this if we don’t clearly know what our values are! This is the biggest tragedy in most
people’s lives: many people know what they want to have, but have no idea of who they want to be.
Getting “things” simply will not fulfill you. Only living and doing what you believe is “the right thing”
will give you that sense of inner strength that we all deserve.
Remember that your values—whatever they are—are the compass that is guiding you to your ultimate
destiny. They are creating your life path by guiding you to make certain decisions and take certain
actions consistently. Not using your internal compass intelligently results in frustration, disappointment,
lack of fulfillment, and a nagging sense that life could be more if only somehow, something were
different. On the other hand, there’s an unbelievable power in living your values: a sense of certainty, an
inner peace, a total congruency that few people ever experience.
IF YOU DO​N’T KNOW YOUR TRUE VALUES, PREPARE FOR PAIN
The only way we can ever feel happy and fulfilled in the long term is to live in accordance with our true
values. If we don’t, we’re sure to experience intense pain. So often, people develop habitual patterns of
behavior that frustrate or could potentially destroy them: smoking, drinking, overeating, abusing drugs,
attempting to control or dominate others, watching hour upon hour of television, and so on.
What’s the real problem here? These behaviors are really the result of frustration, anger, and emptiness
that people feel because they don’t have a sense of fulfillment in their lives. They’re trying to distract
themselves from those empty feelings by filling the gap with the behavior that produces a “quick fix”
change of state. This behavior becomes a pattern, and people often focus on changing the behavior itself
rather than dealing with the cause. They don’t just have a drinking problem; they have a values problem.
The only reason they’re drinking is to try to change their emotional state because they don’t like the way
they feel, moment by moment. They don’t know what’s most important to them in their lives.
The consolation is that whenever we do live by our highest standards, whenever we fulfill and meet our
values, we feel immense joy. We don’t need the excess food or drink. We don’t need to put ourselves
into a stupor, because life itself becomes so incredibly rich without these excesses. Distracting ourselves
from such incredible heights would be like taking sleeping pills on Christmas morning.
Guess what the challenge is! As always, we were already asleep when the essence of what would shape
our lives was formed. We were children who didn’t understand the importance of having a clear sense of
our values, or adults dealing with the pressures of life, already distracted to the point where we couldn’t
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