They say that it can take as little as two weeks to make or break a habit. It’s important to always remember that it takes a lot less time than that to annihilate a lifetime of built-up integrity. When you live by a belief system, your actions are guided by this on a daily basis. For example, you wouldn’t just hop into your can and then run someone over if you genuinely value human life. Along the same idea, you wouldn’t wake up and quit your job because you didn’t feel like going to work.
These particular examples may seem somewhat extreme. Really, who would ever think of doing such things? You’d be surprised. When our integrity and personal standards are under fire, we certainly won’t just get up one morning and decide to chuck it all in. At the times when our integrity and personal standards are put to the test, we shouldn’t choose to throw it all away. There are always specific steps that inevitably lead someone up to the point of leaving their principles behind. It’s necessary to keep ourselves in check in order to keep that from happening.
You’ve probably noticed from the characters in movies, that when the villain is finally captured, he almost always looks just like an average person. The Bad Guy usually tells the police that he’s really a good person, and of course, he never intended to steal a few billion dollars from his company and the public at large.
Manning our principles is one of those twenty-four hour career opportunities – one chance to succeed, and many chances to fail. Our principals are not coming under fire all the time, but only when we least expect it. Something will happen, at some point, and it could be a pivotal point in our lives. It’s like seeing the man in front of you drop his wallet as he attempts to put it in his pocket. Do you pick it up and give it back – or keep it, thinking he should have been more careful?
The defining moments are the little ones. Each little decision changes us somehow. At work, our boss may ask us to let something slide for the “greater good.” We may wrestle with the decision, but in the end, most people will usually decide to go along, just to keep the job.
With each compromising decision, a little more of our integrity is chipped away. It becomes easier to give in each time. What we don’t realize is that we no longer look at ourselves in the mirror – so to speak, and for the same reason, we seldom go against the status quo for fear of being labelled as a hypocrite. In such situations, our principles deteriorate and become almost completely fluid.
If you’ve felt that way, it means you still mourn the changes that have brought you to such a dismal point. Regaining your integrity won’t be easy, especially around those for whom you compromised your ideals. However, with the help of truly understanding and trustworthy people, your self-image can be restored – and you can take control, begin again and rebuild your life.
Alan Gillies is the Founder of Learning 2 Live, an online Lifestyles resource which mixes business with pleasure, covering a number of Lifestyle topics which include Relationships, Health, Wellbeing, Career, Travel & Coaching. Alan has extensive hands on experience across a wide range of business disciplines including Coaching and Mentoring, Change Management and NLP.
