What Is at the Center of Your Life?

Lately, I’ve been rereading a classic, Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

One idea that has really stuck with me is Covey’s concept of principle-centered living.

Without a clear sense of what matters most to us, it’s easy to be influenced from the outside in. Work gets busy. Other people need things from us. Something unexpected happens. We get caught up in the whirlwind of everyday life.

Before long, we can feel a little like a ship without a rudder, being pushed around by whatever happens next.

Covey asks us to think about what sits at the center of our lives. For some people, it might be money or financial security. For others, relationships, social connection, work, or achievement.

There’s nothing wrong with caring deeply about any of these things. But I think there’s an important question underneath them: Have I consciously decided what I want at the center of my life?

None of us starts with a blank slate. Our temperament, how we were raised, the values we absorbed growing up, and our experiences all influence what matters to us and how we define success.

But we can examine those influences rather than simply letting them decide for us.

This is where Covey’s idea of working from the inside out really resonates with me. If we get clearer about our principles, values, and what we want our lives to stand for, we have something more stable to work from when the outside world inevitably pushes us around.

This connects closely with the work I do with clients.

What do I believe my purpose is? What gives my life meaning? What matters enough that I want to organize my life around it?

These aren’t easy questions. And answering them is only part of the work. The next question is how to build a life that actually reflects those answers.

Sometimes that means pushing back against our defaults. Maybe we reconsider what success looks like, where we spend our time, or an expectation we’ve carried for years without ever really choosing it.

We don’t control the whirlwind around us. Life will continue to make demands we didn’t choose and present circumstances we can’t change.

But the clearer we are about what matters to us, the better able we are to respond from the inside out.

It helps to have a rudder.