Gay Landeta
Many of us put personal integrity high on our list of values but very often it gets toppled by the demands of day to day living. Every time we don’t carry through something we promise to do we loose just a little bit of faith in ourself. That’s why it feels so bad.
But we also often compound this problem by not doing what we say we will to ourself. Somehow we justify that it is OK to firstly promise ourself something impossible (like never eating chocolate again) and then breaking it the next day.
Of course we do this to try to break old habits or make ourself do something we think we ‘ought to’, but instead we break our integrity with ourself and loose more and more faith that we can carry through what we say we will.
Long term we can become (as Transformational Kinesiology so succinctly puts it) unconscious losers. Ouch.
How to get out of this spiral?
1. Be Careful What You Promise Yourself – i.e. don’t say I won’t eat carbs / I won’t ever have another relationship / I will deliver on this project / I will run 30 minutes every day / etc unless you can 100%, without doubt, do it. Be realistic instead, tell yourself the truth, i.e. I resolve to eat low carb 3 days a week / I choose not to have a another relationship at the moment and just nurture myself / I expect to deliver on this project on x date and will confirm once I know or by x date which ever comes first / I run 3 times a week even if just to the corner and back. You get the drift.
Once you have the habit or commitment in place then you can expand on it, i.e. I run 30 minutes 3 times a week or eat low carbs 5 days a week, Notice it is still a small step. Taking the steps small means that you are more likely to succeed giving yourself more faith in your ability to do what you say you will do. That will keep you on task more and more and you will deliver to yourself (and others) more and more when you say you will.
2. Be Aware of How Much Commitment You Already Have – especially if you are falling into the habit of saying ‘yes’ instead of ‘I would like to but I can’t’ or ‘I don’t know if this is possible – let me get back to you once I am sure’ (and then get back as promised!)
3. Make Amends or Apologise – If you have let yourself or others down be honest and apologise. But make sure you mean it and are ready to carry through the steps above (or whatever it takes for you to do what you say you will). Empty apologies might make us feel better momentarily but they don’t support that faith in ourself that we need to have to really believe in ourself.
4. Don’t Expect So Much of Yourself! Are you expecting too much of yourself? Ask yourself this, would you expect it of a friend? If not drop that level of expectation down. It is unrealistic and will lead to tears!
For some of us this is a lifelong learning 😉 Make the decision today (if you feel you can give it a good go!!!) that you will check in on yourself as much as possible and only commit to what you really believe you can do. And then practice checking in every time before you commit yourself to something.
Love to hear your thoughts on this!
