EP 141 Why Principles Matter More Than Tactics
If you have ever thought…
“Why am I still struggling? I’ve tried so many different things and none of them create lasting change.”
This week’s podcast episode is one you’re going to want to tune into 👀
What I’m going to show you may completely change how you see every book, course, therapist, podcast, and program you’ve ever tried.
Let’s face it:
Most growth systems aren’t failing because they’re wrong.
They’re failing because they’re incomplete.
Hit play on this week's podcast episode to take a step closer towards being the expert of your own life!
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AI GENERATED TRANSCRIPT
INTRODUCTION
Welcome back to the podcast. I’m Audrey Reba, author of The Mission-Driven Life and founder of The Mission-Driven Mom. I’m so excited for you to join me today.
I want you to understand that most growth systems—the programs that you join, the therapy that you go to, the courses that you take, the conventions that you attend—aren’t failing because they’re wrong, but because they’re incomplete.
And today I want to talk to you about why tactics without principles will always keep you cycling through solutions, and why learning how to think is way more important than learning what to do.
What we experience a lot as women and mothers is that we try to solve problems in silos.
SOLVING PROBLEMS IN SILOS
For example, we have a marriage problem. Things aren’t going well in our marriage, so we go to marriage therapy. Or parenting isn’t going well, so we go to a parenting seminar or a convention, or we buy some parenting books. Or our finances are a bit of a mess, so we sign up for or listen to Dave Ramsey.
Or we need to fix our health, so we go out and get a health coach or a gym pass.
These aren’t bad things to do. It’s not that they’re not going to help you. It’s not that these people don’t have good ideas, and it’s not that they’re trying to do something wrong. It’s just that they don’t have a principled approach—even when they might think that they do.
The parenting example that I gave last podcast is a perfect example of how this happens. Remember when I told you about the moms that bought the book and they all read it, and their takeaway was, “When our kids argue, we need to let them argue and ignore them,” and then it made things worse in their homes?
They had trusted an authority. They had leaned into that authority. This person had, I don’t know, some kind of doctorate degree or something, seemed like they really knew what they were talking about. This book had been popular or whatever the situation was, and they didn’t know how to discern for themselves what the best actions would be.
So they took that person’s advice at face value, and it exploded in their faces.
WHEN AUTHORITY DOESN’T HELP
This is very much like when Blaine and I went to marriage therapy. Things were bad. We knew that they were bad. And, you know, bless him, he wanted to show me that he intended to stay together and that he loved me, and so he signed us up and we went.
But literally, I can remember two helpful things from almost a year of meeting every week with this woman.
One was that I cared way too much what people thought. That was actually legitimately helpful. It was an insight into myself that helped me to reallocate my values and be more careful about that kind of thing.
And then the other thing I remember—the only other thing—was this scale she gave us as she taught us how to use a scale from one to ten to plan the dates that we would go on sometimes.
And honestly, other than that, we spent a year— I don’t even know what we spent back then. A hundred, a hundred and twenty dollars a session. It’s now like a hundred and fifty a session. I mean, you do the math—four or five thousand dollars. I don’t even know what it was that we spent with her—and she did not know how to help us.
Now, as a side note here, I have a husband who has a marriage and family therapy degree from Liberty University, which is a great school. But we watched him go through that program. We saw the things he was doing for his coursework.
There are some good books that came out of that, some good advice that came out of that. But fundamentally, they were throwing things at the students. Many of the students seemed like they were broken themselves and were there because they needed their own healing. They did not seem like they were in a position to really help other people.
And he came out of there still not really having any idea how to do therapy and how to help someone.
Now, you can go get training and apprenticeship and all of that kind of thing. And I know that some people are very gifted. I’m not saying that it’s not helpful.
I’m just saying that we give a lot of credence to what they say. We try that before a lot of other things—or instead of other things. And there’s a reason why it’s not always helpful.
These people don’t always have the training that we think they have. They don’t always have the knowledge and wisdom we think they have. And we aren’t good at discerning what they’re telling us to do.
CYCLING THROUGH SOLUTIONS
We cycle through these different solutions. We try different things. What we don’t realize is that these things have a lot of overlap, and that trying to solve our problems in silos is just going to keep us cycling.
We can have an insight here or there. We can have a little paradigm shift. We can get some help. But fundamentally, we aren’t actually changed.
We aren’t actually seeing the world differently. We aren’t actually behaving differently with a fundamentally different perception of ourselves and the world—a different way of thinking and being.
And we absolutely have to get to that point if we’re going to become the experts in our own lives.
PRINCIPLES VS. APPLICATIONS
This is because there’s a huge difference between principles and applications.
Principles are governing truths.
Applications are situational behaviors.
Not all of the applications—and in fact, not most of other people’s applications or suggestions—are going to work for me most of the time. They’re just not.
And so there’s a ton of voices out there. There has never been a time in the history of the world that can even touch this information age in terms of all of the stuff you’re being fed nonstop.
It is exhausting to navigate.
None of us are properly prepared for it. And unfortunately, we’re even less prepared because of the things that have been taken away from us that would have helped us prepare.
CHARACTER ETHIC VS. PERSONALITY ETHIC
This is the difference between classical education or liberal arts education and modern education.
I’m going to tell you a story from Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. If you’ve followed me very long, you know he’s a favorite.
When Dr. Covey was working on his doctorate, he studied the success literature published in the United States since 1776. He read hundreds of books, articles, and essays in fields such as self-improvement, popular psychology, and self-help.
And he noticed something startling.
The literature from the first 150 years focused on what he called the character ethic—things like integrity, humility, fidelity, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty, and the Golden Rule.
But the literature from the last 50 years focused on what he called the personality ethic—quick fixes, social image, influence techniques, positive thinking, communication skills.
And he said much of that later literature was superficial. It addressed acute problems temporarily but left the chronic root problems untouched.
HACKING AT THE LEAVES VS. THE ROOT
That’s what happened in our marriage.
The therapist wanted to teach us communication techniques. And it’s not that communication isn’t helpful. But they’re techniques—not truths.
We had deeper issues. How we saw ourselves. How we saw each other. What we took responsibility for. What we blamed each other for.
One of my favorite quotes by Henry David Thoreau says:
“For every thousand hacking at the leaves of evil, one is hacking at the root.”
That’s what we’re trying to do. Hack at the root.
Most self-help systems are hacking at the leaves. They don’t know how to get to the root because they don’t have the tools or the paradigm to do it.
DISCERNMENT IS THE MISSING SKILL
Covey explains that the character ethic teaches that there are basic principles of effective living, and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their character.
But before you can live them, you have to recognize them.
And in this flood of information, how are you going to recognize them unless you have discernment skills?
THE BOOKSTORE STORY
Years ago, I was in a bookstore looking for a copy of a book with wide margins so I could write in it.
I wanted to highlight. Take notes. Write my thoughts. Have a conversation with the author.
The salesgirl asked me why I wanted wide margins. I told her I wanted to write my thoughts in the book.
And she said, “Oh, I can’t trust my thoughts.”
It was such a powerful moment.
She didn’t mean she had evil thoughts. She meant she had been schooled to believe that the professor knows better than her. That authorities know better. That she shouldn’t trust her own thinking.
We are trained to write about what authorities think—not what we think. We’re never writing to ourselves or developing our own discernment.
And that has left us unprepared.
EDUCATION DIDN’T PREPARE US FOR WHAT MATTERS MOST
Our modern education trained us for careers.
But it did not prepare us for the areas where we will find the greatest fulfillment, meaning, and joy in life.
If we don’t know how to use lifelong learning to discern truth and integrate it into our character, we are truly unprepared.
BECOMING THE EXPERT IN YOUR OWN LIFE
Imagine what it would feel like to be the authority in your own life.
To have tools.
To have discernment.
To have confidence and peace.
To listen to doctors and experts—but bring it back to truth and make your own grounded decisions.
First, you identify truth.
Then you learn it.
Then you live it.
Then it liberates you.
FREE TRAINING INVITATION
I have an upcoming free training where I’m going to show you how to stop outsourcing authority and start discerning truth for yourself.
You are not meant to be stuck.
You are meant to become the expert in your own life.
If you’re not on the list, get on the list so you can be notified when registration opens. It’s free. It’s happening in a few weeks.
I’m super excited about it. We’ve been working on it for a long time, and I hope it gives you what you need to turn a corner and start trusting your own ability to discern and discover truth for yourself.
Thank you so much for being here, and I’ll see you next time.
