Motivational Monday #16

My goodness… The reunion of this father and son is such a powerful reminder of what really matters most in life.

This week’s Motivational Monday video brought tears to my eyes and reminded me of the importance of keeping primary values in focus…

Values and Balance

For many of entrepreneurs and working professionals, their overriding personal values require them to be a workaholic, stressed out, and out of balance. They may say they want more free time to spend with their families but they never achieve it because it doesn’t support their stronger personal values.

At one point in my life, just a few short years ago, I would work seven days a week, 80 to 100 hours, and often slept in my office because I had so much to do. I was frequently so exhausted that I could hardly see straight. All of this gave me a major sense of accomplishment and proved to me that I was a hard worker.

It wasn’t until I was completely burned out that I realized all of my happiness came from working hard and not actually enjoying my life with the people who mattered most. Finally, I figured out that I needed to list out my real, true personal values which originally looked like this:

1. Significance
2. Achievement
3. Confidence
4. Discipline
5. Integrity
6. Learning

I discovered that my highest personal value was significance which prompted me to make a radical shift in my core values.

What Really Matters and Infinite Joy

Immediately after I identified my personal value and biggest driver as significance, I made a new list of primary values that looked like this:

1. Happiness
2. Love
3. Health and vitality
4. Integrity
5. Playfulness and fun
6. Passion
7. Achievement
8. Adventure
9. Growth and learning
10. Confidence

Shifting my actions to demonstrate my new primary values was not an overnight process but I now experience infinitely more joy because I remained committed and focused. Now, I am so blessed to get to wake up and spend everyday with my beautiful wife and daughter – who I’m going to hug really tightly now that I’ve seen this video!!

To maintain my commitment for living the personal values I adopted after realizing my higher self, I keep a simple piece of paper in the front of my planner that states “I constantly move toward…” with my personal values listed below.

Life is too short not to spend time with the people you love  who matter most. I challenge you to re-examine your personal values and start living with infinite joy this week!

For more motivation, check out last week’s Motivational Monday here: How To Survive Your Next Defining Moment.

To all of the men and women serving our country today, thank you so very much for your service!!!

P.S. For more information about how you can change your values to change your life, pick up your copy of The Unemployed Millionaire here: http://www.MattMorris.com/book! You’ll also receive over $2,000 in success education materials and help to feed 5 hungry children!

P.P.S. I’d love to hear what your primary values are in life so let’s talk about it in the comments section below!

***Mattmorris.com had to undergo maintenance over the weekend so we lost two blog posts and the corresponding comments from last week. This is a re-post for Motivational Monday #16.***