Incorporating Personal Integrity Into Daily Life

Are you living in integrity with who you are at soul level? Understand how to stay in integrity with yourself through daily actions.

You know how we learned a basic definition of a word back in grade school? Where you understand it at one level but the true meaning can be difficult to express?

There are a few variants of what the definition of integrity means, but the one that resonates most with me is this one:

Integrity means making choices or taking actions that are consistent with what you tell others or what you tell yourself that you will do. This is doing what you say and saying what you mean. (A certain song from The Fixx (One Thing Leads to Another) just popped up now…I think I am dating myself a little bit.) It means to honor yourself to the fullest.

For most of us on the surface we would think we are in integrity with our actions. For the big stuff we are congruent in general with our actions and words, but what about the smaller things? You may not even realize you are sacrificing your personal integrity as it is something that is seen at a granular level through our jobs, daily actions, or in-actions.

Are you Sacrificing your Personal Integrity?

To be out of integrity can look like thinking one thing, speaking another, and then doing something different than what you speak. What happens is when we fail to commitment to someone or ourselves, it leads to feeling divided at soul level and it keep us struggling to complete a goal. If we cut corners in one area of our lives, the chances are we are cutting corners in other areas too.

Here are some ways we can be incongruent with personal integrity:

• Do you break agreements with others like plans to meet, go shopping, or do activities together?

• Do you cancel on something because something better came up? Do you always keep your options open?

• Do you break agreements with yourself? This is one of the least noticed ways being misaligned with our personal integrity shows up. After all, you can give yourself permission to do or not do just about anything. You told yourself you were going to exercise 3 times per week, yet you make it twice and tell yourself it is okay.

• Are you often fixing situations or putting out fires? Look into where the areas out where an agreement was broken.

• Do you engage in “people pleasing” and letting others decide for you? Is everything a compromise?

These are just a few ways I have seen myself and others get caught up in the vortex. Let me tell you; none of those situations ever led to something good. It leads to a lack of trust; others stop trusting us and we stop trusting ourselves.

How to Stay in Integrity with your Soul Level Self

When those small daily actions are out of alignment with our promises, it leads to not being able to trust ourselves. When we cannot trust ourselves to complete small things, it takes away your personal power and leads to a lack of self-confidence. In turn that starts to affect the bigger decisions we make.

Here are some things to look for to stay aligned with your own integrity:

• Notice when you start rationalizing or bargaining with yourself.

• Notice when you find yourself coming up with “valid” reasons not to do or finish something. Leave the word “try” out of the picture.

• Do the right thing when no one is watching – you are still watching.

• Ask yourself if you are you delivering what you are promising.

• Look for the little white lies (those we tell others to be nice and those we tell ourselves).

• Honor your agreements to others or to yourself. Avoid saying yes to something unless you can commit to that yes.
  

Seeing where things are incongruent is a chance for you to make a new choice. Get back in alignment with your personal integrity. You might find yourself saying yes a lot less often.