The 6 Most Important Decisions You'll Ever Make: A Guide for Teens

by Sean Covey

  Piles (low character, low competence) have real issues. They don’t care about other people nor do they care much about themselves. Just what is a pile? A pile just sits there, does nothing constructive, and isn’t going anywhere. They need a life makeover. Enough said.

  Hi-Pos or high potentials (high character, low competence) are good, honest people, but haven’t yet challenged themselves to expand their abilities. Because they have a foundation of character, however, they have high potential of becoming a star. So many teens are in this box. They’ve got their act together; they just need to push themselves a little more.

  Stars (high character, high competence) have solid skills and are good people. These people have worked hard to develop their talents but not at the expense of others. They’re not perfect but they’re trying.

  Luckily, there are a lot more Hi-Pos and Stars than Piles and Squanderers. Furthermore, everyone has the capability of becoming a star. First, decide that you want to make a change and then build your character and competence one stone at a time, as explained below.

  THE SELF-WORTH ARCH OF TRIUMPH

  Years ago, while driving into Paris, I came upon one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen: l’Arc de Triomphe, or the Arch of Triumph. It’s a beautiful Roman arch about fifty yards high and just as wide. It was decreed to be built by Napoleon, the great emperor, almost two hundred years ago. Around this arch is a gigantic roundabout, seven lanes deep, that’s legendary for its traffic accidents. While gazing at this spectacular arch, I got stuck in the middle of the roundabout. The local French drivers had no sympathy for me—yet another dumb American tourist—but shook their fists and used nasty French words I couldn’t understand. But you should have seen that arch!

  The process for building character and competence and ultimately self-worth is found in the architecture of the arch, or what I call The Self-Worth Arch of Triumph. On one side you have the foundation stones of character: integrity, service, and vision. On the other side you have the foundation stones of competence: talents and skills, accomplishments, and physical health. At the top you have the keystone, smart decisions, which holds the whole thing together.

  THE FOUNDATION STONES OF CHARACTER

  Although there are many things that build character, the three essentials are integrity, service, and vision.

  INTEGRITY

  Integrity is another word for honesty, with a twist. It means being true to what you know is right and being honest with everyone, including yourself. As Shakespeare wrote: “To thine own self be true.” You don’t cheat on tests, you don’t lie to your parents about what you did last night, you don’t talk nice to someone’s face and rip on them behind their back. People with integrity are whole or complete, like an integer in your math book. They know where they stand and stand there.

  How is integrity a source of self-worth? Having it leads to inner peace. And if you have inner peace, you can handle most anything, even mean girls, heart-wrenching breakups, and major embarrassments. Someone once said this: “Don’t worry so much about your self-esteem; worry more about your character. Integrity is its own reward.”

  Now, if you’re like I was and most other teens are, you’ll make mistakes and have to work on this integrity thing. No one’s perfect. So, if you mess up, make up. Never try to cover up a mistake. It only makes things worse.

  “If you don’t want to slip up TOMORROW, speak the truth TODAY.”

  —Bruce Lee, actor

  In 1974, the 37th president of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, was charged in the Watergate scandal. He went on national TV and denied any involvement, saying, “I am not a crook.” Later the truth came out. He knew what was going on and tried to cover his rear end. The nation was so upset that he was forced to resign in disgrace. Greater than the mistake was the cover-up. People are quick to forgive mistakes, but slow to forgive a cover-up.

  When I was about eight, my parents tell me I set a fire in the window well of my neighbor’s house, just for fun. Well, the fire got out of control and almost burned down his house. As you can imagine, my neighbor, Mr. Beckham, was furious and I earned a bad reputation around the neighborhood for being a troublemaker.

  To help me redeem myself, my dad taught me about what he called the four-fold. A four-fold means that when you make a mistake, you make up for it times four. So I cleaned Mr. Beckham’s window well. I cleaned his yard, and I did a couple of other things to make up for the fire. If you can believe it, Mr. Beckham grew to actually like me and my reputation in the neighborhood was restored. That’s how four-fold works.

  So when you slip up, apply the four-fold. If you told a big fat lie to your parents, make it up to them times four. Maybe that means you do the dishes one night, clean the car, write a sorry note, and never lie again.

  Fixing up instead of covering up—that’s what integrity is all about.

  SERVICE

  “The service we render others is the rent we pay for our room on earth,” said Wilfred Grenfall. When you really think about it, we have so much to be grateful for. Ponder this:

  • If you are reading this book right now you are better off than nearly one billion people that cannot read.

  • If you have a place to stay, food in the refrigerator, and clothes on your back, you are wealthier than nearly three billion people, who live on less than two dollars a day.

  • If you can attend a religious service this week without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are luckier than more than two billion people.

  • If you had a meal tonight, you are more blessed than the one out of five people in the world who will go to bed hungry tonight.

  Because we have been given much, we should give. It should come as no surprise that when you give, you get. Jose from Andress High School wrote about a time when he was challenged by a teacher to help the homeless.

  I went out and bought a couple things from McDonald’s and went driving around with my friend and we found a homeless man on the streets. So I got out and walked over and offered him the food. He was so grateful. I sat and talked to him for a while and then I left. It made me feel good just knowing that the man was not hungry before he went to bed that night.

  This reminds me of this saying I once heard: “Service is like wetting your pants. Everyone can see what you’ve done, but only you can feel the warmth!” The great thing about serving and volunteering is there are limitless ways to do it: adopting a pet, being a Big Brother or Sister to at-risk kids, tutoring at an inner-city school, reading to kids in a hospital, supporting the veterans, joining a service club, speaking out against drugs, or just going out of your way to be nice to those who need it. You get the picture.

  The irony is that when you try to build someone else’s self-worth, you build your own. Author Nathaniel Hawthorne put it this way,

  “Happiness is like a butterfly. The more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it comes and sits softly on your shoulder.”

  My niece Shannon learned this firsthand when she left her comfortable home as a young adult to volunteer at an orphanage in Romania for several months. Here’s an excerpt from one of her letters:

  When we went to the orphanage for the first time, I experienced true culture shock. I walked in the room and saw all the babies lying in their cribs, staring off into space. There were some that were three to a crib. It was very difficult to see beautiful babies just wasting away in their cribs, and I wanted to hold every one of them and never let them go.

  I remember the first time a special baby named Denisa fell asleep in my arms. I didn’t want to put her down because I knew this may have been the first time she had fallen asleep in someone’s arms instead of alone in her cold, hard, metal crib. As I watched her sleep, I could feel the beauty of her spirit, and I realized then that God knew and loved Denisa as I did.

  Another time I was putting a few two-year-olds to bed and was holding two of them, but another one was crying and
wanted to be held. I couldn’t hold three, so I scooted my chair over by his crib so I could comfort him too. I started singing “Edelweiss,” a song my dad used to sing to me when I was little. Almost immediately he stopped crying and listened to my singing which really wasn’t very good, and a beautiful spirit came into that orphanage room in far-off Romania, so far from my home.

  I came to love these children who would put their arms out to be held and run to me, calling me mama. Every day, I prayed that they would someday have a better life than they do now. How grateful I was that I had left my selfish life for a few short months to bring them mere moments of contentment and love. I can never repay them for what they gave me and how they changed my life forever.

  Like a drop in a pond, the good you do will ripple forth long after you’re gone. When Shannon returned home from Romania, she put on slide shows in schools and churches encouraging others to work in an orphanage. As a result, several girls from her area volunteered to serve in Romania. She was happy to know that her babies were still being looked after.

  If I can stop one heart from breaking,

  I shall not live in vain;

  If I can ease one life the aching,

  Or cool one fainting robin

  Unto his nest again,

  I shall not live in cain.

  —Emily Dickinson

  VISION

  “The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but no vision,” said Helen Keller. These are strong words. But she makes a good point. Truly, having a vision for your life and the possibilities before you is a key foundation stone to building self-worth. Without vision, you will be living far beneath your privileges.

  A friend of mine, Ana, shared how having a vision at a young age made all the difference.

  I can never remember life without books. I read all the time—my mother also loved reading so much that if she saw that I was reading she would overlook my undone chores. I love the smell and feel of books. I knew when I was a kid that I wanted be in the book business.

  In addition to my love of reading, I dreamed of seeing the world. My father told me that when he was in the service he traveled the world and he told us stories about exotic places. I would pore over travel magazines. I was invited to do an exchange student program to Japan and I begged my dad to let me go, but we couldn’t afford that kind of expense. My dad wasn’t being mean and I could tell it hurt him to tell me no, but I vowed that very day that I would find a way to see the world.

  My vision of books and travel influenced my education in significant ways. And ultimately it led to my career choices that led me to a job in the publishing business. I now work for a company where I get to sell book rights to publishers all over the world. In this job, I am up to my eyeballs in books! I get to plan what books should be written, read books, edit books, name books, and sell books. And, to top it off, I get to travel the globe to attend book fairs and meet with publishers in the most exotic places, such as Beijing, Amsterdam, and Mexico City!

  I marvel at how my vision of books and travel has become a reality. I can now see that having such a vision as a kid influenced hundreds of small decisions over many days, weeks, and years that ultimately landed me here.

  Unlike animals, we humans have four unique tools or gifts that make us who we are. These include willpower (the power to choose our response to whatever happens to us), self-awareness (the ability to stand apart from ourselves and observe our own thoughts and actions), conscience (our sense of right and wrong), and imagination (the gift of envisioning new possibilities). When we create a vision for our future, we tap into all of these gifts, especially the gift of imagination. We can create a vision for our life by writing down our goals, by writing a personal mission statement, or by simply creating a clear mental picture of what we want to do with our lives and what we want to become, like Ana did. A personal vision can also help redirect us out of bad situations, as was the case with Ferron.

  I never knew who my father was and I grew up in a one-bedroom shack with my alcoholic mom and stepdad and three younger sisters.

  As a young kid I started to realize that not everybody lived like that so I found a local church and I would walk there by myself and spend time there just to get away from home.

  When I got to junior high I realized that I could work hard and improve my situation. I knew I had it in me to succeed. I could see it so clearly that I could almost taste it some days.

  I set a goal to be a state champion wrestler. I would run five miles before practice so I would be in better shape than my competition. Then I would stay after regular practice and work with the coach one-on-one for an hour.

  For many years, I kept what I wanted my future to be like always in front of me. And I kept outworking everyone, believing that I could change my world.

  It all worked out. During my senior year, I became a state champion wrestler and I also received a full-ride scholarship to college.

  I have often wondered why I had the drive to get out of my situation. I had several teachers and adults that took an interest in me and helped me along the way and were great examples for me and they always encouraged me to envision success.

  None of my younger sisters graduated from high school and all have struggled with drugs and alcoholism. I didn’t graduate from college but I’ve always been employed and I’ve made a good living to support my family. I can very clearly see the difference between just existing versus working toward a life vision of success.

  Like Ferron, see the future you desire so clearly that you can taste it. Don’t doubt yourself. You have infinite worth. I promise you, you have strengths and talents that you are not even aware of. Be patient. Don’t compare yourself to others. We all blossom at different times. Use your four human gifts to envision your future. What are you good at? What do you love to do? How can you help others? What do you want your life to be like five, ten, twenty years from now? Start with that end in mind and live your life accordingly. As Oprah Winfrey put it, “Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life, because you become what you believe.”

  THE FOUNDATION STONES OF COMPETENCE

  I attended a lot of assemblies as a teen where the speaker said something like, “You are a wonderful human being. Feel good about yourself!” And I’d walk away feeling no different. Hearing someone tell you to like yourself because they said so won’t do squat, if you do nothing different. Although character is vital to healthy self-worth, there’s more to it than that. What builds self-worth faster than anything else is finding and developing a talent or skill of some kind. This is competence, and there’s no substitute. The foundation stones of competence include talents and skills, accomplishments, and physical health.

  TALENTS AND SKILLS

  The longer I live the more I’m convinced that everyone is born with unique talents and skills.* But they won’t just happen to you—you have to happen to them. I remember breaking my arm as a kid. When I got my cast off, my arm had been transformed into this hairy shriveled-up thing. Such is life. If we don’t push ourselves to try new things, we weaken and wither. To grow, we must expand our comfort zone and move into the courage zone. How? Through pushing ourselves, trying out, taking chances, failing and rising again, and exploring new summits. Competence, like a muscle, can only be developed through resistance.

  Melody learned about the confidence-boosting effects of stretching oneself.

  To audition for the All-State Choir in Kentucky you have to sing in a quartet. The first time my choir teacher called me to sing in front of the class I was nervous, my heart beat wildly, my palms sweat, and my legs shook. Since then I have sung more than twenty times in front of the class. I’ve worked to expand my comfort zone so I no longer become nervous. My audition is tomorrow evening, and now I have confidence in myself. I know I will be fine.

  Think about your own life. Are you wasting the talents you’ve been given? Or are you continually pushing yourself and learning new things? I know of on
e ninth grader, Roxy, who has become an excellent designer and seamstress and can make just about anything on her sewing machine. Although she’s proud of her sewing skills, Roxy says, “No one thinks sewing is cool.” Well, who’s to say what’s cool? Personally, I think anything you can excel at is cool, whether it be sewing, writing essays, organizing things, speed reading, teaching children, or building websites.

  As a boy I was scared of speaking in front of people. To help conquer my fear I signed up for a speech class in seventh grade. The first time I had to speak in class, I was terrified. But it got better each time. Over the next four years I took speech and debate classes to help me develop my speaking skills. Although I never fully got over my fear, I improved as a speaker and it boosted my confidence.

  I’m familiar with a blind boy from Tibet named Tashi Pasang, who could not have had a worse start in life. When he was only 11 years old, his father brought him to a town called Lhasa and swapped him for a sighted child because he was such a burden. Tashi was repeatedly robbed and beaten up by the other street children. Somehow, he survived his very first winter on the streets by begging and wrapping himself in plastic bags to keep warm.

  Eventually, some kind Tibetans found him and took him to a school for disadvantaged kids. There, despite being blind, Tashi pushed himself to develop his talents and skills. To everyone’s amazement, he now reads, writes, and speaks three languages: Tibetan, Chinese, and English. He uses a computer with a speech synthesizer. And he recently received an official medical masseur license from the Chinese government.

  And you thought your problems were bad.

  Through the charity of caring people, and with the ability to read, write, and speak three languages, Tashi is equipped to make something of his life. Without those skills he wouldn’t have a chance. You see, in today’s world, it’s not enough just to be a great guy. You’ve gotta be competent. Speaking of competence, did I mention that Tashi and five other blind Tibetan teenagers went on to climb Mount Everest with the help of some blind American mountaineers?