When my kids were young, we identified some family values and spent a few years examining them. It was a way for us to frame our family lives, a way of living with integrity. We chose values like listening well, embracing creativity, honoring all people, believing in ourselves and others, loving all people and creatures.
It’s important to me to live with integrity. So of course that was one of our values, too. But that’s a hard concept to teach kids. Integrity is not just honesty, it’s also being who we are. Living from our values.
It’s not easy to be who we are all the time. Some days we feel grumpy, some days we feel sad, some days we carry a thousand hurts.
Living with integrity, to me, means asking the best of ourselves and others. Not asking perfection, but asking the best we have to give today.
Every day is different, right? Some days I think, I’m not sure I gave it my all today. I could have done better. That’s why we can’t expect perfection.
Integrity also means carrying our values and the things that are important to us into every part of our lives—work, relationships, play. Meryl Streep says, “Integrate what you believe in every single area of your life. Take your heart to work and ask the most and best of everybody else, too.”
Take your heart to work—that’s my favorite part. Because taking our hearts to work is integrity. Carrying our hearts everywhere, living from that wellspring of light and life and love—that is being who we are. Choosing to live with integrity.
One of my personal values is honesty. I believe we shouldn’t make promises we can’t keep. Part of that springs from my experiences as a child—I had to sort through all kinds of empty promises, and sometimes I believed them. The disappointment of an unkept promise forged this value. It makes me hesitant to promise anything to my kids that I can’t absolutely deliver.
I carry that everywhere. And sometimes it causes tension in relationships, because not everyone feels the same about promises. For some, they’re no big deal. Just words. I get that. I have to adjust my expectations of other people sometimes, because not all of us share the same values. We can’t possibly—we’re different people with different backgrounds and experiences. That’s okay. We all have different things that are important to us, different things we believe.
Another value for my family is love. I believe we should treat everyone with love, regardless of who they are or what they believe or how they live. That’s one I don’t let slide—I ask the most and best of myself and everyone else around me. I carry my heart to work and to meetings with friends and gatherings with my family and out into the world. I try to love the best I can.
Of course I don’t always succeed. I’m an imperfect human—not always generous, not always kind and compassionate (at least in my thoughts…I try to be kind and compassionate in my speech and actions, or I take myself on a break).
When we carry our hearts everywhere we go and we incorporate what we believe into all areas of our lives, we shine. We live with integrity.
I hope you have a radiant month of living with integrity.
How to live with integrity—and ask the most and best of yourself and everyone else:
1. Know what you believe
We can’t bring what we believe into all areas of our lives if we don’t even know what we believe. Spend some times connecting with your beliefs. Schedule some time to sit down and assess the things that matter to you. Honesty? Listening well? Encouraging others? Generosity? Gratitude? Love?
Conversations help. Facilitate some discussions with your friends or your partner or other family members. Write down some values that stick out to you. Think, If I wanted to leave a legacy, what would it be?
2. Find places in your life to incorporate your values more intentionally.
When my family and I were discussing our values, we came up with some specific actions for each value. Things like writing each other love notes. Sharing one gratitude around the table every night. Doing one generous thing for each other or someone else every week. Specific actions help us incorporate our values into our daily lives.
Make a habit chart. Reward yourself for acting with integrity. Do it with someone else so you can share your progress.
Or journal about it. I journaled about our family value journey. Keeping a record of your values can help you adjust and refine, which means it’s more likely you’ll keep living with integrity.
3. Remember today is today.
Wait. What do I mean by that?
Doing your best work, being the best version of yourself, is living with integrity. But we won’t be able to do it all the time. Sometimes we forget who we are. But values and beliefs give us an important framework to get back to. Living with integrity is also calling it like it is—this will not be easy. We may live with integrity today but miss the mark by a long shot tomorrow. Today is today. Tomorrow is…whatever comes.
Also, we’ll grow and change. We’ll refine our values. We’ll evolve. We don’t leave room for that if we expect perfection.
