Make and Keep Promises
The basic element of integrity is making and keeping a promise. Being trustworthy. It’s very important to start from within, with one’s self. If I can’t keep my own promises, how can I do this with others?
Integrity is also about keeping the same, consistent integrated view between all the aspects and elements of my life. Mind/body/heart/spirit, Self/Family/Work, Contributor/Leader. It’s about keeping all the arrows pointing in the same direction and adjusting course to maintain that integrated sense.
Writing something down is a powerful tool. It gives a lot more solidity and creedence to one’s plans when they are captured in physical form. To that end, here are the promises I’m writing down for myself for the next 4 weeks:
Overall/Self
*Daily 5 Minutes of Reflection (spirit)
*Daily 1 hour of mental puttering (mind)
*Daily 30 minutes *MINIMUM* of fitness activity (body)
*Daily check-in on anything I eat (body)
*Daily 1on1 and face2face with my wife and daughter (heart)
Work
*Weekly check-in on Goals and Pathfinding.
*Daily 20 minutes planning each morning.(Vision)
*Daily 20 minute blocks of focused work. (Discipline)
*Daily check-ins with team. (Passion).
*Daily reminder to team and self of importance of work. (Conscience).
Note that I tried to put something actionable to every one of the promises. If I keep them vague, like… “eat better”, that’s harder to act upon. If I say, “before I put anything in my mouth, I’ll ask if it’s the ‘right’ thing to eat,” then I can say whether I did it or not. Make sense?
I think those are enough promises for now. I’ll see how I do with those for 4 weeks. That’s my plan.
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Comments
I like that plan, Chris. Funny how we still say we have “written” these down in “physical form”. Are they really in physical form anymore if they are an elecron beam projection on screen phosphors? Not sure. If electrons and digital records (iron atoms in plastics?) are considered to be a physical form, then aren’t memories/thoughts physical too because they are chemically stored information?
This is way off topic. It just kinda hit me as funny when you “said” it.
I like this plan. I need something like this too. I feel like I am drifting lately. Need something to help keep me grounded.
I lost a lot of my weight by thinking about what I ate. I would often eat it anyway, I made myself no promises about actions, but I did make sure to consider it every time. Turns out, most of my bad eating habits were just that, bad habits, and making eating more consious corrected a lot of them. But if I really wanted that Kit Kat, well, I ate it. Sounds like you’ve got some good plans lined up.
I like this very holistic place where you’re at. Sounds like a great plan, and certainly made me do some thinking about my overall wellness.
Very good points about integrity - especially about starting by being honest with ones self. I find this is usually harder than being honest with other people. Most of my life I was overweight, mostly because I didn’t want to come clear with the truth that I ate too much and moved too little. I think this can be applied with many aspects of our life, we tend to set up road blocks that we have to move before we can go forwards.
I don’t read your blog just for fitness (referring to yesterday’s entry). I Came accross it looking for fitness blogs, but kept coming back for your point of view on everything in general. You appear to be intelligent, and insightful. I enjoy your perspective, especially on improving the whole self. Please feel free to blog whatever is on your mind - I’ll read it! :-)