How am I keeping true to my values? This is a question I often ask myself now, but I didn't always. And when I didn't, I have paid the price. Today I had the opportunity to revisit this question and spend time answering this while my colleague was sharing Dr. Brene Brown's concept around the anatomy of trust with our cohort of adult learners.
We focused on Brene's definition of integrity as it pertains to trust. She breaks it down into three parts:
- Choosing courage over comfort.
- Choose what's right over what's fun, fast or easy.
- Practicing your values and not just professing them.
I know that I struggle with practicing my core values everyday. It's SO much easier to profess them. However, I was reminded today that when I'm true to practicing my values in life that I will have a better sense of integrity and also a better sense of how I want to show up and be seen. Here's an example.
I value connecting. In the past I would profess to others the importance of connecting to self before connecting with others. In other words I would tell people they should take time for themselves but I was not doing that myself. My behavior was not connected to my professed value. As a result, I became angry, short-tempered and reacted in a hostile manner when interacting with other people. It wasn't until I got very sick (your body will tell you) to realize the disconnection.
During my phase of recovery, I decided that if connecting is important then I would first need to develop habits in which I practice connecting to myself first. This is when I began to journal. I had tried to journal before but never believed in the benefit before. But as I kept integrity with my core value, I decided to use my journal as a way to record of the ways throughout the day I was practicing connection. I noticed a shift. I started feeling better. My wife and my two daughters noticed the shift. My energy level was starting to increase. I became motivated to keep journal writing. My format for journal writing helps me to keep integrity with my core value.
Over time, I really valued the intentional time and practice I gave myself for self-care and self-reflection. As I continued to get better at this, new experiences came into my life to reinforce my motivation to keep practicing. I started learning about meditation and started practicing yoga. My relationships with family members and friends have improved.
My invitation to you is to consider taking a moment to pause and take a moment to take a personal integrity scan around your values. Are you actually practicing what you profess?