Today, I’d like to offer five tips for doing the right thing. I hope they give you some support in facing the times when the wrong choices are the most tempting.
1. Make the Right Thing the Easy Thing
The first step toward doing the right thing is to make the path to good choices as smooth as possible.
If you’re trying to develop better eating habits, don’t have junk food in the house.
If you want employees to be honest about mistakes made at work, don’t punish honesty.
In his sometimes-profanity-infused-blog, Jason Lengstorf makes a similar suggestion. I like his discussion about quality over convenience. Most times in our lives, the easy thing wins out over the better thing. Choosing the good over convenience is a particular mindset that we should all cultivate.
Remove anything that makes doing the right thing harder than doing the wrong thing, and reward yourself—and those around you—for making the good decisions you’ve decided to value.
2. Have Clear Goals and Pursue Them
Consider how your choices might impact your long-term goals. Doing the right thing.
As Dr. Timothy A. Carey writes in his article “Making Good Choices,” making bad choices that are short-sighted often leads to a spiral of stress, depression, and anxiety.
A lot of our Life Changers create and share Dream Boards. These can be used to focus on long-term goals, and every time an important decision needs to be made, your Dream Board will serve as a reminder of what’s important.
Do the right thing as it relates to your Dream Board.
3. Be Considerate
As I was working on this post, I came across the Psych Central website. It’s a host page for mental health professionals who write about an assortment of topics. One post there, written after a terrible shooting a few years ago, has a piece that really spoke to my heart.
In the post titled “We All Need Compassion,” Sharon Martin writes the following:
Compassion isn’t complicated. Compassion isn’t political. Compassion is just love. We all need love and we can all give love. A kind word, a prayer, a knowing glance can make all the difference.
One way to ensure that you’re doing the right thing is to act with compassion. To me, that means being considerate of others’ feelings and needs. Think about how your actions will impact the life of someone else.
If that impact is positive, you know you’re on the right track. But if the impact is negative, then you should rethink your approach. I find there is usually a solution that benefits everyone if folks are willing to compromise and be considerate of each other.
4. Practice Transparency
If everyone knew what you were doing, would you still do it?
One way to ensure you do the right thing is to operate with transparency.
In his article for Inc., Scott Mautz says that business leaders should put transparency on the highest pedestal. Secrets and hidden agendas rarely stay private for long. If you always operate out in the open, you can help ensure that you make good choices.
If you’ve read my book, Believe in More, you know how important my Granny is to me. We should all operate as if our grandmothers were watching. Seriously, how good would the world look if you always worked to make your grandma proud?
5. Don’t Worry About Disapproval
At TLC, we do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do!
We don’t look for awards or approval.
We don’t just do what’s easy, we do what’s right, and never mind the naysayers along the way. When your convictions are focused on service, faith, and honesty, you know you’re on the right path.
Recovering From Bad Choices
I wanted to end this post with a few words for people who’ve found themselves facing the consequences of not doing the right thing. Many people—maybe all people—have made poor decisions, some of which had a tremendously negative impact on their lives and the lives of the people they love. Doing the right thing sometimes means owning up to these lapses in judgment and taking the punishment.
The best way to recover from a bad choice is to start making good choices right now. If you want people to see that you’re capable of making the right decision, of doing what’s right, you have to prove it. Start now, and do it over and over.
We can all recover from bad choices when we start replacing them by doing what’s right. I guarantee it will work out in the end.
Jack Fallon
