To become more productive we must get our priorities straight.

In previous articles I??ve written about a couple of ways to strip away the unimportant clutter from our lives. Things we might think we have to do or should do but often really don??t have to do.

However, when we have started to declutter our lives of the unimportant we must also find what??s important to us.

Therefore it??s essential to find what your values in life are. When you work from your values, when you are aligned with them, your self-esteem goes up. Your energy and motivation goes up. You feel calm and relaxed. You feel great and you become more productive.

And in those advantages of living more congruently with your values lies also one way to finding your values. Which things and activities in your life makes you feel that good? Finding those can lead you to what your values are.

Ask yourself: what are my important values? A couple of examples of values are joy, creativity, security and attractiveness. Write down the 10 most important you can come up with. Then order them in order of importance. Steve Pavlina has an excellent list of 374 values to choose from over at his site.

It??s important to find your values. Not the values from your mom, dad, friends, relatives, personal heroes and your culture. But the values that pop out of that list for you.

When you have found your values, start thinking about how you can better align your life with your values. Maybe you need to focus more on your writing or making your own fly-fishing lures. Maybe you need to spend more time with your friends and/or children and less time at the office. Maybe you can find another position in your company where your values better match the job and thereby makes you more productive and raises your sense of self-esteem.

Another thing about values is that everyone has internal rules. These rules measures when we think we have our values fulfilled. If one value you have is to be successful then your inner rules might determine that you are successful when you have landed that big client or have gotten a 50% pay raise. Or when you are the top company in your line of business.

The problem with the rules is when you have internal rules that tell you that to in order to be successful you have to have made 10 million dollars and live in a castle. Or to feel attractive you have to three cute girls throwing their phone-numbers and themselves at you. It??s not impossible or improbable rules, but they can lead to a lot of frustration.

Take a piece of paper and a pen and try to figure out how you know when your values are fulfilled. Then think about if your rules are beneficial and helpful for you. If they are not, if they limit the quality of your life, then consider changing them.

In one of Tony Robbins seminars there was this one guy who was successful but depressed. He had it all – the money, the house, the great job - but his internal rules told him he wasn??t a success until he had earned a certain number of millions of dollars. This arbitrary number was something that was still somewhere in the future for him. Tony contrasted him to another man in the audience. He was seemingly a lot happier. His rule for feeling successful was simply:

Another day waking up above the ground is a successful day.

And the thing is, just because you set such a “low” rule for feeling like a success doesn??t mean that you lose your motivation. It just means that you feel better about yourself. And that??s a better place to be to become more productive than beating yourself up all the time and feeling like a loser.

To change your inner rules try to keep them in mind. For example, write them out on a piece of paper. Tape the paper to the fridge or beside your bathroom mirror. This will remind you every morning and every night. And your new way of thinking will start to seep into your mind and replace the old one. If you have several rules to change, focus on the most important first.

And remember to re-evaluate your values once in a while. As we move through life we change. And so may our values and their relative importance to one another do too.

为了使生活更加多姿多彩，我们必须了解自己的潜在品质。

    在之前的文章中我已经写了几种拚弃生活中琐碎杂乱事情的方法。譬如那些我们可能认为自己不得不做或应该去做，而事实上我们不须要去做的事情。

     然而，当我们开始理清生活中琐碎而杂乱的事情时，我们必须认清对我们来说什么是重要的。因此，关键点是，发现在生活当中，你的优点是什么。当你赏识自己的潜在品质并在生活中保持这些品质，你的自豪感将与日俱增，你的精力和动力将更加充沛，你会觉得坦然自若，并且你将因生活更加多姿多彩而感觉非常棒。

    而以上这些与自己的内质相协调的生活所带来的好处，也展现出了一个发现自己潜在品质的方法——哪些事物或行为令你在生活中产生这些良好的感觉呢？找到它们就能够帮你发现自我的潜在品质。

    扪心自问：什么是我最重要的品质？举几个例子，优良品质往往使人快乐，充满创造性，使人觉得安全，富有魅力。将你能够想到的优点中最重要的十个写下来，然后按照重要性将其排列。在史蒂夫.巴甫里纳的网站
里有一张极好的列有374个品质的单子可供选择。

    确定你的内质是很重要的。这些品质不是来自于你父母，朋友，亲戚，个人英雄主义或是你的文化所灌输给你的，而是你自己从上述列表中选出来的。

    当你确定自己的品质后，就开始思考——如何将这些品质更好的融入到你的生活中去。也许你该更多的关注自己的写作或者是制作自己的蝇钓诱饵；也许你应该花更多的时间和自己的朋友或是孩子相处，而不是老待在办公室；或许你可以在公司里另谋一个职位，换一份跟你的内质相和谐，一份使你事半功倍，一份能使你感到更加自信的工作。

    此外，有关个人品质的另一个问题是每一个人都有自己的衡量准则。这些标准会衡量我们自己的内质有否完全体现。如果你的一个要求是取得成功，那么当你得到一个大客户或是工资提高了50％的时候，你的内在标准就会确认这样的收获是否就是成功。或者还是当你的公司成为同行领头羊的时候你才获得成功。

    然而，对于这些标准所出现的一个问题是：当你把成功的价值标准定义为挣了1000万，并住进自己的城堡里或是有足够的魅力吸引三个美女给你电话，并以身相许时。这种“成功”不可能做为衡量的标准，因为它们只会带给你更多的挫败。

    拿出纸和笔把你认为可以衡量你是否已经实现了所追求的品质的那些标准写下来。然后想想这些标准对你是不是有所裨益。如果没有，并且发现它们的存在降低了你的生活质量，那么考虑更改这些标准。

    在托尼.罗宾斯的讨论会上曾有这样一个人，他是成功的，但是并不快乐。金钱、房子、体面的工作，他都有了，但是他内心的那个衡量标准告诉他只有成为百万富翁的时候他才算是真正的成功。对于他，这个意想的数字在未来是否能实现还很难说。托尼将他与在会的另一个人比较，这个人看起来很快乐。他的成功的标准很简单：

    如果明天可以在地上睡醒，那么这一天就是成功的一天。

    这里的关键是，并不是因为你确立了一个“低”标准，你就会失去动力。这只是表明了你的自我感觉良好，而这种感觉比起不断的鞭策自己，并感觉自己失败来，使你处于更好的状况，令你事半功倍。

    改变你的衡量准则，并把它记下来。例如：把他们写在纸上，并贴在冰箱上或是洗澡间的镜子旁边。这样就可以在每天早晚提醒自己。你的新的思路将开始渗透到你的脑海里，并替代旧的思路。如果你有好几个准则需要更改，请先更改最重要的一个。

    一定要记得，当我们随着时间而改变时，过一段时间重新审视你的品质。并且我们的品质以及品质之间相关的重要性也要适时调整。