Integrity is simple - it
means doing what you said you would. Quite often it is twisted and turned to make
it suit a situation but really it is as simple as keeping your word.
It is easy to shoot off at
the mouth and say you will do so much, with your intention at the time to do
exactly what you have said. But following through can be quite a different
matter.
If you do not keep your
promises - you are not acting with integrity.
If you keep your promises - you act with integrity.
How often do you follow up?
How often do you stop and think – now what did I say I would do? Do you stop to think about how in integrity
you are in your life, either professionally or personally.
How would being in
integrity in your life change things for you? What would the differences be?
What would be the changes within yourself?
We often say things or
promise things without thinking about the consequences to ourselves and
others. What would the consequences be
to yourself if you were constantly making promises and not keeping them?
For example: you said you
would be home to take the kids to get something to eat and then go to the
theatre for their Friday night treat. You stay late at work to finish something you had forgotten to do,
forgetting the promise you had made to your family. Arriving home way too late
to go out. Definitely an out of integrity situation.
Example: You arrive home 30
minutes early excited about the night ahead, you have already bought the
tickets for the theatre and booked a table close to the theatre at a family
restaurant you know is the kids’s favourite. Definitely well in integrity situation.
Keeping your word can be so
simple. We often make rash promises that at the time we mean, but following
through is quite another thing.
Deciphering the difference
between the promises you do make and the promises you have made in a rash
moment helps us to keep in integrity.
Take time out and stop to
think if you can follow through with the promises you are making or renegotiate
what you said you would do, so that you stay in integrity for yourself and for
others.
Make a list of all the
things you said you would do and when you said you would do them. Are you in or
out of integrity? What can you do to get back in integrity?
- List 1: Things I will complete
- List 2: Things I need to renegotiate
- List 3: Things I should back away from
Fill all three lists and
then act accordingly. It feels great to
be in integrity.
