A word on Integrity
Integrity is probably one of the hardest principles for me to uphold. I am talking about the integrity of my word. I am not talking about the little white lies I tell – Yes I am working hard, yes I liked the way you did that, sorry I didn’t return your call I have been too busy. It is far easier to tell these little white lies than to be brutally honest (or indeed just tell it how it is). I don’t want to hurt other people’s feelings and I don’t want to come off looking like the bad guy. But rather than go into the merits of being brutally honest and not telling little white lies, let me talk instead of my word. Let me swap the phrase ‘my word’ for ‘my promise’. This I need to uphold. When I say I am going to do something I need to make sure I deliver on that promise. If I cannot keep the promise then I shouldn’t make it in the first place. If I commit to something then I need to keep to that commitment. I am not talking here about a movie caricature where the cowboy or mafioso won’t go against his word to the cost of all others. I am just talking about being more true, reliable and not give away my promise too lightly, especially to myself – it is the promises to myself that I keep breaking that are the most damaging to my soul.
‘I will start next week’. ‘I will get up early tomorrow and finish this’. ‘I will make sure I get it done at all costs’. ‘I will commit to this until it is finished’. ‘I will complete this by the end of the year’. ‘I will ensure that I earn this much within six months’. These are the kind of promises I make when I am on a caffeine high, an alcohol high or just a motivational high. But do I really believe these promises? Not really. How can I when I never keep them? How can I ever plan for anything if I don’t keep these promises? I can have the best plans and strategies in the world and they mean naught if I don’t actually mean what I say. If I want my dreams to become reality then I had better start keeping my own promises.
Perhaps my dreams are too big for me to be able to keep my integrity. Perhaps it is like a muscle that I need to exercise and build up. So I will start small. I won’t promise myself $5 million a month just yet (although the belief and certainty is definitely there). I will just start by committing to everything I promise to myself on this blog…… a very public promise (although I let myself off the hook slightly in the knowledge that no-one is reading this blog).
So what small promise can I make right now? I commit to having made $100 on my first website by the end of September (exactly 12 weeks away). $100 is the first step to making $5 million and I commit to doing it. $100 seems to be letting myself off a little lightly as if I want to make $5 million perhaps I should be aiming for $5,000 by the end of September. But let me start small and definitely make it and see if I can over achieve, rather than starting large and missing the goal of making $5 million.
