When we change our behaviors to do the right thing, we make our lives and the world a better place. Often times the right thing to do is staring us right in the face. Our gut instincts are telling us to go ahead and do the right thing but we talk ourselves out of it or allow others such as friends, family or society dictate what our behaviors should be.
But why should we care about the right thing? Well some beautiful things happen when we take time to do the right thing.
- You raise your self-esteem. When you do the right thing, you are standing by your values and being the person you want to be. As a result, you know you deserve the successes in your life and know you’ve done the best that you could. When you cheat to get your way, you don’t know if you are worthy of the successes you have obtained. If you lie to your spouse, you will wonder if you are worthy of his or her love. When you make unethical decisions in your business, you will worry if those choices will catch up with you and sabotage your success. Doing the right thing places you in a position of honesty and standing true to your core values. You won’t have room to doubt yourself because you already trust yourself.
- You attract people who also want to do the right thing. Doing the right thing doesn’t often attract people who tend to make unethical choices. You’ll be more likely to meet and surround yourself with people who share your values and want to stand true to their principles. You may also inspire other people to do the right thing. As others see you standing by your personal values, they may be motivated to stick to their values as well.
- Good things are more likely to happen to you. When you do right to someone else, people will often want to repay the favor or you’ll get more of their future business or services. Being unethical and doing the wrong thing will be more likely to burn bridges, attract negative feedback and lessen the quality of your relationships. People will view you as a liar or a fraud. When you do the right thing, you’ll earn more respect from your customers, employees or loved ones. Sure, doing the right thing may not always have immediate good results or be easy, but the long term benefits often make doing the right thing worthwhile. You will be viewed as trustworthy, reliable, honest and respectful. Having those traits associated with your ethics will reap you rewards in your business and personal relationships.
- You make the world a better place. Doing the right and ethical thing has a great benefit of making the world a happier and better place. Living ethically means you will likely make better moral choices about your impacts on the environment. Doing the right thing means you are more likely to be a better friend and partner to someone, furthering someone’s happiness and the overall health of your relationship. Fighting for someone’s personal rights will be one step to making our communities a happier and safer place to live in. Making the choice to do the right thing empowers you to make your own life and the world a much better place.
Great! Now you are aware of the reasons on why doing the right thing is important and valuable, but how do you get in the process of doing the right thing? Doing the right thing isn’t always easy but below are some tips to help you get on the path of doing the right thing.
1. Let your values drive your actions and goals. A great way to do the right thing is to always speak from your values rather than your goals. What often makes doing the right thing hard to do is feeling like doing the ethical thing will get in the way of your goal. However, when you let your own personal desires get in the way of your core values, you’ll often feel more negatively as a result.
An old friend once was trying to get his short story published. The story ended up being picked up for publication by a decent journal. He agreed that the journal could publish his story but by agreeing to this contract, he would not be able to publish the story elsewhere. About a week or so later, one of his dream journals asked to publish the same story that was picked up a week before. He wanted to follow his goals of being published in his dream journal and was very tempted to tell the other journal they could publish his work, which would have been unethical. Thankfully, he decided to be honest and do the right thing. Sure, he missed an opportunity to be published in his dream journal. However the consequences of breaking his contract with the other journal could have had negative implications on his career. Ultimately he ended up publishing a different story in his dream journal later on so everything ended up working out in the long run. When you let your values drive your actions, you’ll typically end up doing the right thing.
2. Have high standards for yourself. Doing the right thing can be difficult when we give ourselves excuses or allow ourselves to get by on the bare minimum. When you live by high standards, you will be less likely to not do the right thing. For instance let’s say that you know that cheating on an exam is the wrong thing to do and part of your core values is to be an honest person. However, when you give yourself excuses you are more likely to dishonor your values. Common excuses might be how this class doesn’t matter to you anyway, how you’ve never been good at Math or how if you don’t pass this class, you might not get into a good school or program. When you give yourself excuses you’ll be more likely to end up cheating and feeling like it is the right thing to do right now. As a result, you might get caught and have further negative repercussions such as being kicked out of school or instantly failing the course. Another negative consequence is that you may not even try to pass. Because you aren’t challenging yourself to pass and relying on cheating, you’ll cheat yourself of opportunities to learn, grow, discover another passion and may cheat yourself of further opportunities that require that particular skill set. You may never know if you could have passed if you had simply made that effort to pass. When you stick to your high standards you are more likely to do the right thing.
3. Have reminders for doing the right thing. When you give yourself reminders of what the right thing is and why you want to do the right thing, you’ll be more likely to make the right choice. Staying true to our values can be tough when you forget about what the right things are. For instance, have you been in a situation that did not align with your values, but in the moment, you forgot that this was something you don’t agree with and you ended up doing it anyway? The next day or so, you felt regret for doing something that didn’t align with your values. This can happen with things such as an infidelity or telling someone a lie. In the moment, you might forget how going on an inappropriate outing with someone you are attracted to can lead to cheating. Or you might not realize how telling a small lie can lead to even bigger lies. To prevent yourself from forgetting to do the right thing, you can have daily reminders. Some people rely on their faith as a reminder. Reading a religious text such as the Bible may remind you of what your morals truly are. Other people leave themselves messages or have inspiring words that remind them of what their ethics are. Find reminders of your values that you can refer to regularly.
4. Don’t let someone talk you out of doing the right thing. You know what the right things are. Doing the right thing can be tough when our feelings tell us one thing, but others tell us something else. I used to sometimes ask people if I should do something, even though I felt like I knew what the right thing to do was already. As a result, I ended up relying too much on people’s opinions rather than on trusting myself to do the right thing. When doing the right thing, follow your path. There will be all sorts of competing thoughts and voices on different ways to do things and how to approach your own life. Your gut often knows the right thing to do. Trust in yourself and have the courage to stay on your own path.
5. Hang out with people who share your values. Being around people who do the right things will make you more likely to do the right thing. When I was with a cheating ex-partner, we often spent time with his friends. He had some friends that I got along very well with, but the majority of his friends weren’t very nice. A couple of them had outright affairs on their spouses. Others were in awkward and dramatic situations that involved lying. I was placed in uncomfortable situations where someone would ask me to lie for them or remain silent on things I saw. Being around those people was very uncomfortable and made doing the right thing seem like something that rarely happened. After breaking up with this ex and forming my own support network of people who share my values, I’m now surrounded by people who not only share my values, but follow their values. Doing the right thing doesn’t seem rare and I’m not surrounded by people who lie or cheat. When you surround yourself with people whose values you respect, you are more likely to respect your own values.
Doing the right thing isn’t easy but the more you do the right thing, the easier it is to do the right thing. In what ways have you done the right thing recently? What were some times where you were challenged to not follow your values, but you ended up following your values anyway? Please share your comments and feedback below.