How to Succeed in Business by Doing This One Thing

Integrity is a core value I want in my life and in my business. All my team members also need to have integrity in order for my business to grow. 

Integrity is not just being truthful and honest. We all are. But it’s doing what you say you’re going to do. I'm always in integrity when I commit to other people and that’s how I want my company to run too.

I want to be the most reliable and responsible person so that people can count on me. It’s one of the main reasons why we have won so much business and why we get referred so much business. It's because we follow through on everything we say we're going to do. 

Integrity for other people is the easy part. The hard part is self-integrity.

The Importance of Self Integrity

If you want to know how to succeed in business than you must stay in self-integrity. Self-integrity is following through on the commitments you make to yourself. 

How many times have you said you're going to get in shape, go to the gym, work out, eat right, and then you barely start or you fall off track quickly?

When this happens, you're operating from feelings. If you decide you don’t feel like going to the gym today, then you’ve lost self-integrity. 

Related: 3 Reasons It’s Important to Know Your Why

Backbone of Achievement

When you don’t stay in self-integrity it means you’re not getting what you want in life. Self-integrity is the backbone of achievement, and yet so many of us pay so little attention to it. 

According to Dr. Michael Jensen, professor of business administration at Harvard, integrity is a matter of a person's word, nothing more and nothing less. 

When I'm not in integrity with myself, nothing works relative to my goals, objectives, or agenda. Nothing works when I am out of self-integrity. 

That's why it's really important.

When you break your word to yourself, what are you really saying? 

You’re saying that your word is not important to you and it's not essential for you to honor your word to yourself. 

How to Stay in Self Integrity

Think how powerful it is if you say you’re going to do something and actually follow through with it. 

How do you stay in self-integrity? 

First of all, do not commit to things that you’re probably not going to follow through with. The act of not following through is sending a huge message to yourself that it’s okay to not follow through on your commitments to yourself.

Be Automatic In How You Do Things

Become the kind of person who does things automatically.

If you know you’re the kind of person who works out in the gym, then you automatically go to the gym and workout. It’s something you have to do. And you do it.

Once you blow a commitment to yourself, everything else becomes easy to ignore. You see that there were no consequences that affected anyone else. 

But when you blow a commitment to a client or a family member, there are consequences.

Tomorrow Is Not a Goal

The difference between people who are totally crushing it in their business and the people who aren’t as committed, focused, or driven is this concept of self-integrity. 

People who don’t get as far in keep telling themselves that they’ll do things in their business tomorrow. If they need to write a blog post, they say they’ll do it tomorrow.

But tomorrow is a concept, not a goal. If you say you’ll do it tomorrow, it’s just you putting it off. You are not operating in a place of self-integrity which keeps you stuck in neutral. 

Start to treat yourself with the same level of commitment you do with other people. 

The number one thing is not allowing yourself to blow those commitments, because then you're telling yourself it's okay to do that.

Leave Your Feelings Out

The other challenge is to be the person who does the things you say you're going to do not based on how you feel. 

You may not feel like going for a walk when you committed to a walking routine. Or you don’t feel like waking up early to write in your journal or whatever else you committed yourself to start doing. You just feel like staying in bed.

Instead, you can tell yourself that you are the type of person who gets up early to write in your journal or go for a walk or whatever else you like to do in your morning routine.

Rather than feeling cozy and warm in your bed, be the person who does the thing you say you're going to do and start to live from a place of self-integrity.

Stick To Your Commitments To Yourself

I want to give you permission to say no. Say no to things that you don't feel you're actually going to do so that you don't start feeling shame and beat yourself up. 

If you wanted to start a diet but didn’t, or it’s Thanksgiving and you’ve blown your diet again, then you’re out of self-integrity. And when you blow it, you start to tell yourself negative things. 

If you make a commitment to yourself, do what you said you were going to do. 

A person who does live from a place of self-integrity will have the things they’re looking for. They’ll have more energy, get enough sleep, lose weight, and exercise consistently. They’ll reach the goals they’ve set out to reach in business and life.

What have you been wanting to do for yourself? What have you been saying you’ll do but you put it off for tomorrow? It could be a goal in your business, but you keep putting it off till tomorrow. 

The key element is having the awareness of self-integrity and deciding you will live in it. You decide to do the things you say you’re going to do for yourself. Things that only impact you and nobody else. 

Think of what you can do in your life if you operate from this place of self-integrity.