Being Honest with Yourself
One of my taglines in business and law is ‘be honest with
yourself even when you aren’t honest with everybody else.’ You deserve to be
honest with yourself.
The logic is simple. If you are lying to yourself, chances
are, you are lying to others. And if you are lying to yourself and others, who
are you being honest with? In life, it is important to have someone to talk to,
especially yourself. Self-talk is most communication you are going to have with
any human being.
Now, I know this all sounds redundant, but to take your life,
business, and relationships to the next level; you need a solid foundation. And
in the mix of that foundation there needs to be honesty.
Being honest with yourself has several perks: (1) an avenue to relieve life’s pressure, (2)
gives you a baseline to start, (3) gives you realistic goals to strive towards,
and (4) you don’t have to worry about living someone’s thoughts and/or dreams
about you. All of this might seem trivial to you but ask someone who is running
several companies with hundreds of employees. These four benefits do not seem trivial
to them.
When being honest with yourself, you find that life is not
as hard as you think. Most of the time, we are having repetitive passing thoughts
of the same thing constantly during the day.
This gives you the illusion that things are worse off than what they
really are. And being honest with yourself forces you to look at life
situations for what they really are.
Also, honesty with yourself gives you are reality check with
where you are and the distance you are from your goals. Winston Churchill says
it best, “facts are better than dreams.” Simply, if you deal with the facts,
even if you have not achieved your dreams, at least you are able to address
life situation to move towards your dreams.
Honesty with yourself not only gives you a shock factor of
where you are. It also, if you are being completely honest, a pathway to your
goals. Many people put goals in front of them or tell their family and friends
that they want to accomplish some monumental goal like graduate college, become
a millionaire, etc.; however, they don’t put the work in to make it happen. Being
honesty with yourself forces you to either redefine your true-life goals or makes
you realize that you have work harder to achieve preexisting goals.
Finally, being honest with yourself allows you to be free. Dave
Ramsey said it best, “[people] buy things [they] don't need with money [they]
don't have to impress people [they] don't like.” If you start being brutally honest
with yourself, you will free yourself from the feeling need to impress others.
Take Aways:
Honesty with oneself offers a lot of benefits: Relief from life’s pressures, reality check
with current situation, goal achievement check, and ability to be free from
other’s opinions of you.
~ Attorney Ronnie
O’Brien Rice, Ph.D.
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