Tag: Integrity

Because It’s Free

Achieving Goals, Happiness, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Often in life things are offered to us for free. It might be a marketing strategy to give out cans of a new drink to get people to try it and hopefully to start buying it. It might be your friends offering you a bar of chocolate as a kind gesture. Whatever it is, what we often do is get excited and accept it without question, because it’s free.

If we had to pay for it, we would likely ask more questions about whether it was good for us and whether it would create any value for us. So, why is it different when something is free? I think there is a sense that we have somehow won something or we are grateful for the kindness of others.

When we are offered something for free we could ask, does it serve me? Would I normally pay for it? Does it align with my values? Does it align with my goals?

If you are offered a free chocolate bar and you have made the decision to stop eating chocolate, due to you trying to eat healthier, you shouldn’t take it, because it does not align with your goal and it does not serve you. This applies to anything we are offered for free.

Just because something is free does not mean that it has value.

Integrity Matters

Happiness, Success

There are two types of integrity. The first means that you do what you say you will do, to yourself and to others. This could be seen as just being reliable, but if it is done as a matter of principle, then, for me, it falls into integrity, rather than reliability.

The second is living by your values and beliefs. This is being kind, even to those who treat you badly. It is finishing what you started, because you always do. It is a path less travelled, but an honourable path to walk down. In a social media filtered, fake it til you make it culture, living by your values and beliefs is unusual, but essential.

Building Self Credibility

Quick Thoughts

Often, without meaning to, we make promises and break them, both to others and to ourselves. It could be that we say we will start going to the gym or that we say we will do a friend a favour, but then don’t.

When we break promises, no matter how small, we lose credibility with ourselves. We start to believe that we are unreliable and slowly our actions follow our thinking and we do.

If, however, we decide to go to the gym and we do it or we decide to get up when the alarm goes off, instead of hitting snooze, and we do it or we do the friend a favour when we say we will, then we will build credibility with ourselves and people will see that we mean what we say, that we are reliable and trustworthy. It is a matter of integrity, because integrity is a verb.