When you live a congruent life, different parts of your life are no longer split into separate compartments, instead they become part of one integrated whole where each part mutually supports and reinforces each other part.
Many self growth thinkers regard congruency as THE success principle. “Why You Must Bring Congruency Into Your Life” ( achieving-your-dreams. com/articles/articles. php) talks more about this.
For example, you are in a career that appears to be good for you financially at the time but no longer motivates and inspires you. Your lack of love for this career shows through in your attitude and interactions with other people and as a result you may have difficulty in forming friendships leaving you feeling lonely and out of step with the world.
You decide enough is enough! You will change to a career that you feel passionate about…
Fast forward to the new you working at something that you love – now you have passion for what you are doing and the contribution you are making. Now you find that your social circle expands as people are attracted to you as a person that is enthusiastic about what you are doing.
Encouraged by your new life, your stress levels go down, you feel healthier and you eventually find that you are succeeding easily in your new career and even end up financially better off than before.
The way that all the different parts of your life are connected together can work very powerfully for you if you let it. The danger is, it can also work very powerfully against you if you are not congruent in just one area.
PUT PRINCIPLES AT THE CENTER OF YOUR LIFE
A state of congruency where your whole life fits together to form a beautiful picture just like a jigsaw puzzle is a worthwhile goal, but how do you get there?
One of the keys is to recognise that all the different parts of your life are ultimately governed by a set of universal rules or principles.
An example is kindness – being kind to friends and family is something that we all recognise as the “right thing to do” and will bring us rewards in terms of stronger and better relationships with our friends and family. Being kind to a stranger can reward you with a better feeling about yourself.
Being kind to your body results in better health, being kind to your co-workers, your employees, your boss will bring benefits in your work life…
Kindness is a universal principle that we can all recognise and that as individuals we can all integrate into our lives and our spirits.
There are many of these principles – love, fairness, being proactive, being responsible for yourself, honesty, integrity… The challenge is to find these principles and align your life around them.
You should remember that principles are deep, fundamental, universal, timeless truths recognised by all religions and systems of belief as being central to harmonious and successful human lives. If you look at them in this way, they can be separated from the more transient beliefs and values of people and groups that sometimes get mistaken for principles.
Principle centred living will lead to a congruent life, the challenge is to build your life around principles.
HOW CAN I FIND OUT MORE ABOUT PRINCIPLES AND PRINCIPLE CENTERED LIVING?
Stephen Convey’s timeless classic “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is a good place to start. The book claims that it is based on the universal principles and as you read it you will find out that this is true.
One of the sections of the book is dedicated to organising your life around principles and making sure that they are integrated across all the different parts of your life in a congruent way. Perhaps the best piece of advice is to get a copy of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, read it and start applying some of the wisdom that’s inside.
One final word of caution – living your life around principles is no quick fix – it takes time, maybe even an entire lifetime to get there, but the results can be very rewarding!
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