Becoming healthier
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| 2010 Version of Paul. Having fun for sure... I think... with my posse |
What does it mean to become healthier? You might have heard me say this or you have read something that I wrote about this topic, but what does it really mean? Is it strictly a physical measurement? Is it something that leads to a finish line? Can it be measured at a visit with your physician or personal trainer? Or can even be something that is measured by your mindset or maybe a different way of saying that, your emotional well-being?
Did you answer yes to any of the above questions?
I might try to defend the position that all of the above are plausible and even correct. But in all honesty, you are the one that is going to have to make that determination and decide what is stopping you from becoming the healthiest version of yourself. The next step is the hardest and for many the scariest, what do I do to change?
Recently I listened to a fitness guru talk about making changes in lifestyle. They suggested one of the biggest problems that we face is in the promises that we do not keep to ourselves. The word they used was integrity. That word struck some fear into my mind when I heard them use it. In a matter of seconds from hearing that word, I realized they were speaking to me.
Integrity can be defined as a firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values. We should be people of integrity. Yet we are human and we fail often, we know that and understand that failure does happen in this broken world. But we still should try to be people of integrity. Now this is what hit home for me. We are often people of integrity to those around us; our friends and family, our coworkers and those we care for. We make commitments to them and we work hard to keep those promises to them for any number of reasons. Maybe one of the greatest reasons is that we don’t want to disappoint them or you could say fail them.
Yet what happens to the commitments or promises that we make to ourselves. If we can define integrity in simple terms, doing what you say, then why do the promises that we make to ourselves take a back seat? Why is that?
Have you been conditioned to place others before yourself?
Is it because you value the opinion of others?
There could be any number of reasons why we find it more important to keep our commitments and promises to others and let the commitments and promises we make to ourselves fall behind and eventually fail.
That is why when I heard them say that you must have integrity with yourself I realized that I struggled with this. When it comes to goals that I have made in the last five years or so, that is a common problem for me. I make a commitment to myself and then I fail and I shrug my shoulders and say I am sorry. I don’t do that with others. I try my hardest not to let others down and uphold and do what I say I am going to do. So something has to change.
It has to do with keeping your promises to yourself. How do we do that when it comes to making any change in our life? I know we have to believe in what we are doing. So that means we must become the greatest salesperson that you have ever run into. Sell yourself on the idea. Do not take no for an answer. Do whatever it takes to make the deal to believe, honor, respect and love yourself!
That should be thought provoking for you.
Question of the day, do you believe in yourself?
Do you honor and respect yourself like you should?
Do you love yourself?
Now is a chance to do a little soul searching, a time to reflect and maybe even a chance to talk someone about this. Do you have a spouse or trusted friend or mental health professional that you can lean on?
Take the time to care for yourself today. Don’t wait till tomorrow to do this. Become a person of integrity to yourself. Make and keep your promises to yourself.