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- Personal Integrity - The Missing Ingredient?
In the 1925 US Open, after assessing himself a one-stroke penalty for unintentionally causing his golf ball to move from a difficult lie in deep rough, Bobby Jones was universally praised by patrons and the media. The self-imposed penalty forced a 36-hole playoff between Jones and Scotsman William Macfarlane, which Bobby would subsequently lose—denying him a record fifth US Open.
The act of honesty incidentally elevated Jones’ legacy to stratospheric levels, but Bobby himself always shirked any praise regarding the event. “You might as well praise me for not robbing a bank,” the seven-time major champion insisted.
Personal integrity is defined as having strong morals or values and following those principles in both your words and actions.
The concept of having integrity is really quite simple—living with integrity means you uphold your values, no matter the situation or who is watching. You live to your own moral code. Jones lived by his code.
People who consistently achieve results have high personal integrity. Here’s are 5 ways to increase yours.
5 Ways To Increase Your Personal Integrity
1. Own Everything In Your Life. In Harder To Kill #24 we got into what Jocko Willink refers to as extreme ownership. Extreme Ownership is the practice of owning everything in your world, to an extreme degree. It means you are responsible for not just those tasks which you directly control, but for all those that affect whether or not your mission is successful.
The first step to increase your personal integrity is to take extreme ownership of your life. Because your health is the foundation upon which everything relies, start there. For most men (nearly 80%) that means dropping the excess weight they are carrying and that involves cleaning up your diet. Start there.
2. Make Promises To Yourself And Keep Them. One way to take extreme ownership of your life is to make promises to yourself that you will actually keep.
Start small, be specific, and stay consistent. Make it easy so you aren’t taxing your willpower. As you build momentum, reward yourself with something that reinforces the promises you are keeping.
James Clear’s advice in Atomic Habits is helpful. It’s less about willpower and more about understanding how good habits are formed and bad habits broken.
3. Set Priorities. Use the Warren Buffet 5/25 rule to set your priorities. James Clear does a great job describing it so take a few minutes and read his take on it.
If you find yourself with a long list of things to do and not enough time, this approach will help improve your focus and allow you to make significant progress on the priorities that really matter to you.
4. Weed Your Mental Garden. James Allen, author of “As A Man Thinketh” said it best:
“A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.”
Social media, low priority tasks, Netflix, ads…these are all weeds that are taking up space in your mind. The more weeds, the less likely you’ll address the top 5 priorities you just set in #3 above. Start thinking of all these distractions as weeds and start removing them. You’ll have more time to invest in your priorities and personal integrity will climb dramatically.
5. All Progress Starts By Telling The Truth. Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach, is the man behind this one. From Sullivan:
“To make real progress, you have to have both the courage and resourcefulness to say, “This is not working, and this is what I think might be a possible solution.”
At any given time in your life, there are likely many things that aren’t going according to plan. You have to be willing to be honest with yourself and those around you about what’s not working for you, both personally and professionally. The more you exercise your ability to tell the truth about your shortcomings, the faster you’ll make progress.”
All of the previous suggestions become easier once you start telling the truth…to yourself and others.
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