The Power of Honesty
For me honesty is one of my core values, however, for a long time, I didn’t live by this value at all. I lied to my family, I lied to my friends, I lied in relationships and I lied to myself. It wasn’t until I started to reflect and embrace what honesty is and isn’t, that I started to develop self-acceptance and a sense of inner well-being.
“I can be honest about anything, with anyone, at any time” Robert Hella – Brojo Member and a man I admire greatly for his honesty.
For me being truthful is fundamental to living a value based lifestyle and is something that I am always striving to embrace more fully. It’s something I have discussed a lot in Brojo and with my coaching clients and so I thought I would do my best to summarize what honesty means to me and hopefully by sharing, give you some insight into how you can develop your own ability to embrace honesty.
1) Honesty is expressing your feelings at any given moment and how the world is impacting on them. Right now, as I write this article I feel unsure if what I am writing is any good, I feel anxious that people won’t find value in these words and I feel fear that I will be ridiculed for my views.
2) Honesty is not judgment. Homosexuals haven’t caused family values to collapse, not all Muslims are terrorists and that girl you called ugly in the club is more than capable of building a connection with someone who feels she’s attractive. When you judge others you're pushing your baggage onto them, in my experience, those who are the most judgemental of others are the ones who fear being judged the most.
3) Being honest will hurt people’s feelings and that’s ok. Sometimes you need to do this for your own wellbeing or theirs. It can feel like getting stabbed in the heart at times, but this heals over time and even if it leaves a scar you can still go on. Lying is like a cancer that spreads and infects your wellbeing over time and causes far more suffering that truth.
4) Being honest is telling the world you’re okay with who you are. When we lie we are really saying to ourselves that the real me is not good enough, that the world won’t accept who I really am inside. How will you ever know this if you don’t let them see you?
5) Honesty is scary! When you're honest you remove the social armour or mask that you wear as protection and you leave yourself open to the world. It can feel sort of like standing naked in a crowded place.
6) Honesty builds connection fast and allows people to connect with you around your vulnerabilities.
7) Honesty is self-sustaining, the truth doesn’t need a story to support it. A lie will often require more lies to keep it going which can be mentally exhausting and drain for your self-worth.
8) Honesty doesn’t require others, lying does. Even if you were locked in a room on your own for 24 hrs a day you could still be honest with yourself.
9) Honesty is always possible whatever the situation. You just need to be prepared to take responsibility for the consequences. Lying is our attempt to manipulate the outcome in a way that is favourable to us and avoid taking responsibility.
10) Honesty is simple it’s just fear that tells us it's hard. Lying requires planning, thought, research and sustained energy.
There you have it ten hopefully useful tips or ideas on honesty and how you can use it to power yourself development. Remember that honesty is self-acceptance, it’s you saying to the world you’re comfortable with who you are, how you feel and the way you act. There are many more ideas on honesty out there check out my colleague Dan Munro’s video below for his take on the Value of Honesty.
If you have your own ideas and feel like sharing them leave a comment or check out my website and send me an email, I would love to hear your honest feedback. Thanks for taking the time to read this and lookout for yourself out there in the world.
