Tag: honesty

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Congruence, Trust, and Personal Integrity In Our Commitments→

When honoring your commitments becomes too hard, you have two choices: you can change your behavior to meet your commitment or you can change your values to meet your behaviors. One choice will strengthen your integrity and the other with will erode it.-Stephen Covey

Powerful reality in simple terms. Whether it is a commitment to yourself, others, a company, or a community, whether it is an agreement explicit or implicit. Taking ownership of our commitments, and acknowledging the impact of our behaviors, is a critical element of trust and relationship building

Tied to this is the concept of congruence and dissonance. A common phrase I often hear is about how we shouldn’t listen to what people say and instead look at what they do when it comes to determining character and quality. 🤔However, while there is certainly some valuable information to be gathered in that observation, I think it is incredibly important not only to hear what someone says, but to see if someone matches what they say with equivalent action. This 🙌Congruence🙌–the alignment of word and action– consistently over time, is the basis of trust and integrity.

Dissonance, meanwhile, is the opposite, and happens at all scales. Dissonance in our lives appears in small ways, such as saying you’ll get up at 7 and yet still snoozing until 8, or that you won’t eat sugar and yet still have a little chocolate after dinner to promising to send an email tonight and not doing it until tomorrow….. up to larger scales such as being lazy at work or doing the bare minimum after promising excellence; It’s deprioritizing people you say are important–ie not calling back or standing someone up or giving them time. And at the height, its major breaks of trust and commitment.

And each moment of dissonance, large or small, adds up. It not only harms the trust others have in you but the trust you have in yourself.

The Speed of Trust and Building Congruence in Your Life

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I recently finished the book Speed of Trust, and it suggests 3 things you can do to level up and improve rate of congruence in your life… to help in building deeper trust:

  • 1️⃣ don’t make too many commitments. Time is a limited, invaluable resource and each commitment you make requires a certain amount. Make sure you’re committing that time to who and what and where it matters. people? self-improvement goals? your degree program? business projects?
  • ️2️⃣️ treat commitments to yourself, large and small, (ie that alarm clock, your gym new years resolution, your dieting habits) as seriously as those you make to others. If you can’t trust yourself why should any anyone else? trust starts with you.
  • 3️⃣️ don’t make commitments impulsively or hastily. Think through the entire lifecycle of a commitment. Discuss them with your partners, boss, associates, friends, or self. Make sure you are on the same page and can honor what you claim you can, to the level expected.

These three stepping stones can get you pretty far actually in building better trust-founded relationships. But what isn’t mentioned here is what to do when you break a commitment–when dissonance resonates?

Resorting Integrity in the Face of Dissonance

Personally, despite my best efforts, I’ve been guilty of dissonance and still on occasion find that I have made a commitment I either can not or am not actually willing to meet.❌What I have learned is that the only way to restore trust, and my integrity, and get back on track is

  • 🔸 take ownership. admit you had and broke a commitment
  • 🔸 acknowledge the impact. recognize that there are levels of impact–on your communities, your partners/friends emotions and well being, on the performance of your organization, etc. what are they? this is an important step because you also begin to understand why YOU are important, and why your commitment was important to begin with
  • 🔸 renew the commitment, re-negotiate it, or terminate it. here is an opportunity again to set accurate expectations, make appropriate commitments, and move forward in a space of trust and integrity.

At the end of the day we should all be striving to achieve high levels of congruence in our lives, where people can trust us–that our actions and words will align. Congruence inspires confidence and trust, and demonstrates not only high levels of integrity but a capacity to make meaningful commitments–and it sits at the heart of what it is to be a Leader.

And.. whether you are a leader in a large space or just leading your own life, congruence will help you show up better not only to yourself, but to your partners, co-workers, and friends.⚔️

Reflections:

  • Where and with who or what do you have commitments, and what are they?
  • Do you accept those commitments as they are or do they need to be renegotiated?
  • Which commitments trump others when there are conflicts of action?
  • Are your words congruent with your actions?
  • Who and what matters to you, and are your actions communicating that they matter to you in a consistent manner?
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Freedom and Discipline

“Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose – and commit myself to – who and what is best for me.” – Paulo Coelho

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No one is free from commitments, despite what they think.

I have met many people over the years who are ‘afraid of commitment’ or seek to live a life without commitments.  However, this is a fundamentally dishonest and immature way of thinking, and usually reflective of a lack of self awareness.

We all have commitments in our lives, whether or not we wish to acknowledge them:  

  • Commitments to our work, to show up on time and do our best. Even if we are just working for ourselves. 
  • Commitments to where we live, from paying landlords and banks to keeping the space habitable.
  • Commitments to our friends and family, to be there and care for them in time of need, to offer advice, to celebrate, to show up on time, etc.
  • Most importantly, We ALL make promises to ourselves, to eat better, sleep more, read more, go to the gym regularly, and so on

Everyone has some distribution of commitments in the categories above, though they might look different from person to person.

Even things that seem like non-commitments are in fact the opposite. To choose not to have children, to choose not to buy a house or to get married. We are simply committing ourselves to a different, ‘non-traditional’ style of life, but it is a commitment nonetheless.

So when someone approaches me and says they aren’t ready for commitment, or that they want to live free of commitments, what they actually should be saying is ‘I dont want this commitment’. 

Unhappiness in Commitment

So why do so many people end up unhappy in their commitments? 

  • We enter into commitments prematurely, lacking all the information.
  • We enter into commitments without understanding fully what is expected of us on our end .
  • We fail to negotiate terms we are comfortable with
  • We stay longer than we should, either because we are afraid or we don’t know how to leave (’feeling trapped’) or don’t realize we could (’promises of forever’)

By this way, many of us end up disempowered, frustrated, and wary of future commitments, not realizing it is our fault we are unhappy, and not the commitment itself. 

Freedom

When we start to realize that our whole life is essentially a collection of different commitments we are making to ourselves and others, and when we wake up and see exactly where those commitments already exist, we gain the ability to negotiate the terms of those commitments.

This is how we become an active participant in our lives. By acknowledging commitments, negotiating their terms, and choosing which ones you will honor and which ones you will let go: this is freedom.

Daily Reminder

Identify the commitments in your life, and the ones you are avoiding. Walk away from the toxic, embrace those that nourish, and add new ones that add value to your life.

-Caitlin Pontrella

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M: On the Self x2

What is the ‘self’? Characteristics, features, qualities. How do we find or lose it? How do we measure its authenticity in a world of unoriginality? Do we even need it? When and why? (functioning in society, for enlightenment, etc). IF we have it and discard it, what remains?

Response:

In my previous messy post, I discussed self as a sum of our values & needs. Values are a reflection of our beliefs and assumptions of the world and our selves. Needs are things we’ve identified as paths to happiness (sometimes accurate, othertimes not).  To retain a healthy sense of self is to find your ‘kinetic’ self, your ‘fluid’ self–self as a process rather than a thing.

The Static Self

The ‘static’ self is a reflection of a lifetime of collected beliefs and conclusions, not just about the world but also ourselves.  These beliefs, in the form of values and needs, become fixtures in our lives, organizing systems for all new experiences and information we encounter.  It takes all new information and fits it into existing values/belief systems or it discards it.

We become trapped by our own perceptions, values, needs, knowledge, etc, as these things become increasingly fixed and static. The path to happiness becomes more narrow, it’s definition more exacting. Through the deep cultivation of convictions, we in fact create our own self-destruction.

Authenticity

To personally examine and consciously choose each of your values and beliefs: Free yourself from your conceptions of the world in order to turn around and actually examine them.  Reject blind acceptance. Reject unquestioned cultural assimilation.  You may find after your examinations that those beliefs are still true for you, but without that personal examination you will ultimately lack authenticity. Your ideas are not your own, they are functional transplants pending eventual failure: Because you did not create them yourself, you can not evolve them, you can not truly understand them.

Self-evaluation and re-creation is critical to being able to evolve those ideas later and stay authentically you.

Stability, Usefulness, and the Static Self

Does static self have a place?  Static self in some ways is useful, at least as a way to interface with others.  While your true self may be fluid and kinetic; changing under the surface, prehaps this turbulance is too much for those in society to deal with.  Perhaps the ‘Static Self’ – a curated representation of who you are–is what we need in order to function in a highly developed society.

Static Self is when you earmark a point in your life, a version of yourself (complete with beliefs, values, needs), and present and re-present that version to the world. We all do this. We all become an image or a set of ideas/beliefs/behaviors to our loved ones, our families, our colleauges, etc. And sometimes, they do it to us. They capture an image in their heads of who we are, and we are condemned to it until they capitulate.

It doesn’t have to be this way, but it is easier, no? Humans crave stability. But the spiritual journey is one of great uncertainty. We need to find a balance to operate in society & to continue on our inner path at the same time.

So, I will leverage a series of static selfs against society for my ambitions, but with my most intimate of relationships I will strive to be my true self; a fluid human being in a state of constant growth and turmoil. I am a boiling sea, I am full of active tectonic plates, shifting, moaning, groaning, crunching, crushing: With my most intimate, I wish for them to be apart of the storm, an ally, a partner. I wish for them to push the plates, heat the water, agitate the storm. I wish for them to stand me up, to cool me off, to hold my hand.

Honesty, Ritual, & The Static Self

The Static Self is in many ways a dishonest representation of your current state. But the Static Self provides a sense of stability and a place of reference from which others in your life can interface. 

For those undergoing great shifts, the static self is a way to avoid scaring people off.  Most people in this world only have their static selfs, with minor variations, and can not comprehend rapid emotional and inner change.They do not depart on any deep spiritual journey–or will not until later in life.  

This is perhaps why rituals are very important in society. Coming of age, getting married, moving out, moving around, entering and ending a relationship, starting, leaving a new job, etc.  These pivotal movements are places where society accepts radical change in someones Static Self. So for most who do have a sense of fluid self, they save making a public shift until these periods.

Cultural Rituals are critical for the survival of the Static Self. Ugh could write too much on this. Skip.

What happens when we discard self?

This is one of the many enlightenments in life. Perhaps that process of defining self each day–the evaluation of values and needs–is a process of hacking away at the unessential.

If we can eliminate all superfluous needs–to need nothing for happiness–means, our day to day requires very little difficult choice.  When our values are robust and elastic, and our needs are minimal, Happiness is an ease to achieve. Happiness comes from within.

Without needs, the self ceases to exist, the ego ceases to exist. 

I honestly don’t know.