the "i" word

A couple of huge subjects have been lingering on my mind this week, dying to get out and onto black and white. The first: Integrity. The second: Love.

Today I’m going to talk integrity in hopes to clear the path of learning about love. (of which I’m still knee-deep in research. People love talking about that one)

In my last seminar we talked a lot about miracles and how to cause them. Sounds like a tall order. One of the ‘tools’ we were taught to use to cause the miraculous was integrity. Given that integrity is not something I consider myself particularly 'good; at, I ignored this little fact and went on my merry path hoping and wishing for miracles to happen to me (without actually doing the work to get them). Surprise surprise, nothing happened.

What I did start to see is that I give up who I am a lot of the time in order to meet an end. I would cater my personality to who was around me, and let go of the only thing I really have control over in this world; my word.

I had never been firm on being myself all the time until a few months ago. Then a funny thing happened. As I started to act more myself, I began to love my life more. 

Rewriting my goals the other week cleared something else up for me. I just want to coach and develop people all day long. My life would be rich and full and happy if I could do this constantly. But what would it take for this to happen? Quite simply I would have to manage myself... yeah, not something I’m great at. Doing things for others is a cinch. Doing things for myself? Not so much.

So what to do? Give up this goal, of course. Wait...that doesn’t sound right. Yet that is precisely how I have been acting, which might explain the lack of miracles happening in my life.

When I wrote down these goals, I immediately noticed the vast difference between what I wanted to do versus what I was doing right now. There was a clear to-do list I needed to start working on yesterday. And at the top of that list was talking to those in my life about what I wanted (can’t do it alone, you know?). First on the list was my manager. And a funny little thing happened when I checked that one off. Some might call it a miracle.

That afternoon my company held a conference call on integrity hosted by Brian Tracy himself. He said two things that blew my mind:

1) Integrity is not a core value; it’s the fundamental principle that allows you to live your core values, and

2) To live with integrity, all you have to do is Take Responsibility, and Tell the Truth

It hit me that the only time I fear the truth is when something I really want is at risk. Noticing what you lie about is a way of finding out where your next life challenge is.

This week I scheduled a staycation which was to be devoted to helping my mom move. But before you can take care of others, you need to take care of yourself. So on Wednesday and Thursday I am working for me; going through all of the to-do lists I wrote down in my 2011 agenda, and finding those lost items that never got checked off. This will be my work for two days. Clean up the forgotten bits of this year in an effort to pave the path of the future.

This is a scary task for me, but I have been thinking about fear a lot lately. The things we are most proud of in life often come from overcoming fears, and it's a choice to see fear as crippling. If you truly commit yourself to living your wildest dreams, then fear becomes merely an easy tool to help identify what there is next to accomplish.

As humans, we create a sense of ‘self’ based on our actions from the past. In order to create a new vision for who you could be, sometimes it takes showing yourself what you are capable of first. In September I took on being responsible to prove to myself I could handle money and finances. In October I took on my health to show my mind that I could be proactive and live a consistently healthy life. In November I have shown myself what it means to be truly me all of the time. December will be about learning to work for myself so I accomplish the things I want to, instead of just what others call on me for. 

These are all new brain patterns for me, and with the completion of each development phase, I inevitably see the next phase reveal itself. I can’t wait to see what’s next.