{"id":95026,"date":"2023-03-05T09:31:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-05T13:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=95026"},"modified":"2023-03-10T12:12:03","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T16:12:03","slug":"self-integrity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/self-integrity\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-Integrity: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Cultivate It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do you consider yourself a person of integrity? What does it mean to live with integrity<\/a>? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Living with self-integrity means living in accordance with your values. Your values are in turn informed by your intuition and the vision of the kind of person you want to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading to learn what self-integrity is and what it means to live according to it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What Is Integrity?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In her book The Way of Integrity<\/em><\/a>, life coach Martha Beck defines self-integrity as the psychological state of living in accordance with your own personal nature<\/em>\u2014your deepest level of self, you know what will make you happy and what kind of life you want to lead. <\/strong>You may experience your personal nature in the form of intuitions or deep personal yearnings, or a sense that something is \u201coff\u201d in your life when you stray too far from your nature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While each of us has a personal nature, our daily life is not always aligned with this nature. For example, you might spend your life locked into a routine, when your nature is more spontaneous, or you might spend your life in solitude when your nature is more sociable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Beck, most people are not in alignment with their nature. She explains that this happens because our nature may be out of alignment with our culture<\/em>.<\/strong> Beck argues that you grow up as a member of society where you consciously or unconsciously absorb cultural messages about how to live and who to be. When you internalize these messages, they solidify into beliefs. <\/em>You may form beliefs about the “right” things for you to pursue in life and the \u201cright\u201d person to be, even if they aren’t true for your personal nature. When this happens, we create false beliefs<\/em>. These false beliefs <\/em>then pull you away from being aligned with your personal nature, which may want something else entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Beck, there are two ways culture may prevent you from living with integrity<\/a>: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. You Chase Goals You Don\u2019t Really Want<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Cultures often teach us what to want in life. Your culture may teach you that pursuing wealth, status, and “success” (however defined) will make you happy. Then you might put an enormous amount of effort into achieving those things only to find that they haven’t actually made you happier. That is because these goals are not necessarily aligned with your personal nature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, an employee believes that becoming a manager would make them feel successful because this role is higher in their company hierarchy. However, deep down, they actually hate working with other people and would rather take a job where they complete projects independently. Because of the messages they’ve internalized from their work culture, this employee might spend years chasing that management position, only to feel miserable once they get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. You Try to Be Someone You\u2019re Not<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Beck argues that you may absorb lessons from your culture about who has value and who does not. In an effort to be someone who has value, you may then try to change who you are<\/a> to conform to this standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, someone might believe that they need to be physically attractive to have value. Then they spend all their time exercising and shopping for clothes when really they would rather be learning a musical instrument with that time. This causes them to be out of alignment because they pursue an image of themselves while rejecting the deeper motivations of their personal nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Acting With Integrity Matters <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Not only does acting without integrity prevent you from pursuing things that you really <\/em>want in life, it also damages your self-respect and thus your self-esteem. <\/strong>By rejecting the behavior your own mind<\/em> decided is right, you reject yourself and lose self-respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It doesn’t even matter if anyone else knows if you choose not <\/em>to do the right thing (for whatever reason). Your self-respect depends only on how you<\/em> judge yourself. Since you can\u2019t avoid knowing whether your behavior reflects your values, you can\u2019t violate your integrity without damaging your self-respect\u2014and thus your self-esteem.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to self-judgment, lack of self-integrity causes guilt, which you feel because you <\/strong>chose <\/em><\/strong>not to live by your values<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, you can only choose to live by your values\u2014to practice self-integrity\u2014in situations you can control<\/em>. As such, it\u2019s important to understand the difference between what you can <\/em>and can\u2019t <\/em>control. For example, you can\u2019t<\/em> control that you were promoted right after your friend was fired, but you can <\/em>control how you deliver that news to her. Otherwise, you may feel guilty over something you couldn\u2019t control\u2014which may comfort you by making you feel <\/em>like you could have changed an unfortunate situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTITLE: The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem
\nAUTHOR: Nathaniel Branden
\nTIME: 66
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\nAMZN_ID: XYZ
\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to Live With Integrity<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It’s very hard to find fulfillment if you go against your own nature\u2014the part of yourself<\/a> that knows what the right thing to do is and what you need to be happy. Fortunately, you can work on cultivating self-integrity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Identify Your Values<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Everybody has values that guide their decision-making<\/a>. Whether your values are consciously articulated or not, they are driving your decisions and choices in life<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When your values are in alignment with who you want to be<\/a> and how you want to live your life, you are living in a state of self-integrity. However, when you unconsciously pursue values that you’ve internalized from culture but that don’t reflect who you want to be, you lack self-integrity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, your values exist in a hierarchy, with some values preceding others in their relative significance. When you are clear on your value hierarchy, you can improve your life by deciding to actively pursue the values that mean the most to you and will bring you the most fulfillment. For example, if you are offered a great promotion at work but it would require you to move overseas, you must determine whether you value success above connection with family and friends, or adventure over comfort. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his book Awaken the Giant Within<\/em><\/a>, Tony Robbins recommends identifying two value hierarchies that guide what you do and don’t do:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Your hierarchy of \u201cmoving-toward values\u201d ranks the values that bring you pleasure<\/strong>, such as love, power, and freedom. The values at the top of this hierarchy are those that you would do almost anything to fulfill. <\/li>
  2. Your hierarchy of \u201cmoving-away-from values\u201d ranks the values that you want to avoid because they bring you pain<\/strong>, such as confrontation, fear, rejection, and loneliness. The values at the top of this hierarchy are those that you would do almost anything to avoid. For example, if your coworkers invite you to karaoke, you may not want to go because you want to avoid the humiliation of singing<\/a> in front of everyone, but you may go anyway because your fear of social rejection is greater than your fear of humiliation, and you don\u2019t want your coworkers to reject you if you pass on their invitation.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    First, become aware of how you currently prioritize your <\/strong>moving-toward<\/em><\/strong> values. <\/strong>There are countless values that you could hold and adopt, but, to get started, rank the following values in order of priority: <\/p>\n\n\n\n