FLIPSIDE OF MIDLIFE: Integrity and YOU

How often do you break promises to yourself? How is that affecting you?

In this episode, I explore what integrity with yourself looks like and why fostering it may be the life-altering element you need in this season of life.

Hear my case for starting small in any new endeavor and how keeping even the tiniest promises to yourself creates the evidence you need to believe in yourself again.

You are worth showing up for, my friend!

Ready to go deeper? Book a no-cost coaching consultation at karlinewman.com/private-coaching

📩 I'd love to hear your thoughts. Reach out to me at karli@flipsideofmidlife.com

xo Karli

P.S. While you’re at it, join my FLIPSIDE OF MIDLIFE® email community!

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Visit my new website focused on my private one-to-one services. I’d love to guide you as you honor where you are and explore what’s next!

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Transcript

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When we think about integrity, we almost always think about honesty with other people. But what about the promises you make to yourself and break when no one is watching? In this episode, I want to explore what integrity with yourself means, what it looks like, and why it could be the most important element of your relationship with yourself that you can tend to. Hey, my friend. Welcome back to FLIPSIDE OF MIDLIFE® I'm Karli Newman, your favorite Gen X dealer of positive vibes, Life and Wellness Coach, and founder of FLIPSIDE OF MIDLIFE®, a community for women in midlife and beyond. I'm so happy you're here for this one. Let's dive in. Think about the last promise you made to someone that you care about. Now, think about how committed you were to keeping it. How much would it have bothered you to let that person down? Now, think about the last promise you made to yourself. How did that one go? For most of us, and yes, I include myself in this, there's a significant gap between how seriously we take our commitments to others, and how seriously we take our commitments to ourselves. We tell ourselves that someone else is more important. Every time you break a promise to yourself, something shifts inside of you. You probably don't even notice it. It's so subtle. Slowly the trust you have in yourself erodes. Imagine if you had a friend that you made a promise to, and over and over again, every promise you made, you broke them. That friend would no longer trust you, right? That is what's happening inside of you when you don't keep the promises you made to yourself. When you don't trust yourself, what are the ramifications of that? Ah, so, so many. It's something that bleeds into everything you do, my friend. Without being able to trust yourself, it becomes harder and harder to believe that you're capable of change, that you're capable of doing hard things, that what you know to be true is actually true for you. Self integrity is not about perfection. It's not about becoming someone else. Self integrity is about becoming that person you can count on always 100% of the time. Let's talk about what that looks like in practice. Like anything that is new to you, something that you're experimenting with, or getting curious about, or learning, I always recommend starting small. Having baby steps that you can take, that you can promise to yourself and keep, that is always a momentum builder for success, for getting to where you eventually want to be. So start small, my friend. One of the most common ways we break promises to ourselves is by making them too big. We commit to a complete overhaul, moving from one mile an hour to a hundred miles an hour. These are not realistic. We would not make these kinds of promises to someone else because we wouldn't be able to ensure we could keep them. So start with a small promise to yourself. Commit to it. Keep it. Even when life gets in the way, even when it gets hard, something small you can continue to do. It may feel so easy when you make this small promise to yourself, and that is exactly the right promise to make. A big promise you might have made previously could be, I'm going to walk every day for 20 minutes for the next month. Something is gonna get in the way of that promise, my friend. Instead, why not make a promise of, I'm going to walk three times a week for five minutes? See what I mean about seeming so easy? You can fit that in at the grocery store. You could fit that in in so many places. That's an example of starting small, my friend. What is one thing that you want to promise to yourself? Maybe it's a promise you've broken over and over again. Break it down, make it smaller. Maybe you want to be someone who journals on a regular basis. Rather than setting a goal to journal every single day, pick a couple days a week or pick one minute a day, or pick 30 seconds a day. What is so easy that you can't imagine not being able to do it? Small promises kept consistently are powerful when it comes to building the evidence that you can trust yourself. It's proving to you that what you say you're going to do, you're actually going to do, and that's where these small, very easy promises come into play. They're building your self trust. Tell yourself the truth, the whole truth. Stick with your promises and your self integrity starts to blossom. Integrity is honesty. Honesty means getting clear on what you really want, not what you think you should want, not what seems responsible or selfless or impressive to anyone else, but what's genuinely true for you right now. Self integrity means acknowledging when something isn't working, when you've been avoiding something, being honest with yourself about that. Trusting yourself to be vulnerable with yourself, ohhh, the wonders it does for your self-trust and integrity. When you hone in on this and develop this skill, it is very clarifying, This is where the real change happens when you can be very clear on what you want, what you need, and how to go about it. I encourage you to think of one small promise you can make to yourself and keep that promise. Now, this isn't to say that we won't make mistakes, and that is another place where honesty comes in. Instead of making excuses, you can say, I didn't follow through on that. I want to get curious about why I didn't, and I'm going to try again. Maybe something easier, maybe altered in some way. No drama. No beating yourself up. No judgment, only self-compassion as you are developing your self integrity, your self-honesty, and your self-trust. The goal is never perfection, my friend. That does not exist. The goal is a relationship with yourself, built on respect, compassion, honesty, and integrity. If you're ready to go deeper on living in alignment with who you are, enhancing your self-trust and integrity, I'd love to speak with you about private coaching. It could be your next step. We work together one-on-one on what it is that you want to bring into your life, so you can start experiencing your best years now rather than later. Go to karlinewman.com/private-coaching to book a no cost, no pressure consultation. I'll have that link in the show notes and transcript for you. You are worth keeping promises to, my friend. Your commitments to yourself matter. Show up for yourself with the same care that you generously give to everyone else in your life. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I love hearing what resonates with you during my episodes. Reach out to me at karli@flipsideofmidlife.com to share. Join me here on Wednesdays for more bite-sized episodes you can apply to your midlife and beyond, and every other Sunday for guided meditations and visualizations. I look forward to meeting you here for all of it. Take care and be well, my friend.