Life Success Strategies - Your Personal Integrity Meter

Disce
between accepting and settling. Accept what you cannot change, but never settle for anything below your standards.

When you settle for less than your standards, you allow yourself to lose integrity and you lose a piece of yourself every time. Simple math tells you that the more you’re not in integrity, the more you lose.

Being out of integrity is very similar to your spine being out of its healthy alignment, or the alignment of your car being out of its proper settings. In either case, you (or your car) aren’t going to be able to operate at the optimum level when lacking integrity. You can’t be at your best when you’re totally NOT present. And some settling always enables more settling.

Settling, in fact, is quite contagious. Although it may seem easier to settle than to work for something that is nothing less than your standards, in the end, it will take much more work to dig yourself out of the settling rut of non-integrity. What it boils down to is: Are you being real, authentic and settling for nothing less than your standards, or are you avoiding making a stand for yourself, and in doing so, settling and pretending to be satisfied?

Too many times I have witnessed people putting more focus on being right (ego driven) and being nice (co-dependent driven), either at the expense of being real.

When you’re real, you don’t have to prove anything to anybody, nor do you have to do anything outside of the limits of your standards, values, and priorities. When you’re real, you’re in your integrity; and when you’re in your integrity, you have the opportunity to live in your highest good and in the highest good for all humankind. Your life runs easier, just like a car in its proper alignment, when you are in your integrity.

Okay, let’s say you are now clear on your deal-makers, highly-desirables, wish list and deal-breakers; and you are not settling and are trying to live in integrity. There is still one more thing you must watch out for: Weeds!

Needs, Seeds and Weeds

When I was planning a garden a few years ago, I sat down and designed it specifically to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. I knew exactly what I needed to get the results I wanted. I knew what my deal-makers were, my highly desirables, my wish list, and what my deal-breakers were. I was very deliberate about what I planted in order to achieve my goals.

However, after the planning and planting, I let my garden go. I didn’t do the weeding and maintenance which was required. Eventually the weeds came in and wiped out the purpose of my garden. The worst part was I saw what was happening but continued to let it take place... I got “busy”!

I allowed myself to settle for an overgrown garden. This caused me great anguish because I knew the garden didn’t have the beauty (nor the butterfly attraction) I’d planned and as a result I knew I wasn’t living up to my own standards.

By planting the seeds you want in your life you create a garden (and a life) which is both what you like and what you want attracted to you.

Whatever you plant – thoughts, beliefs and actions – you’ll also reap, but in much greater quantities than you planted.

If you plant seeds of fear and insecurity, then you get’ll more fear and insecurity. If you plant seeds of hope, faith, trust and prosperity, then you’ll get more hope, faith, trust and prosperity. The solution is quite simple...

Plant what you want to grow!