meat-3183069_1920.jpgWith lifestyle changes, staying true to your word has a lot to do with integrity – even to yourself. We give up easily over difficult circumstances, inconveniences, or looking at short-term costs. Yes, we want to be true to ourselves, we want to meet goals, keep our commitments, yet we don’t always do so! Why? Perhaps we think there’s someone else to clean up our mess? Or maybe our goals will slink into a corner and quietly go away? Wishful thinking, but it won’t happen.

Life always serves up healthy doses of difficulties and discomfort. It doesn’t matter if we toss them aside and pretend we never saw them; they always come back to bite us in the end. So not only do we now have to deal with the result of neglected responsibility, but we have to convince ourselves that we still have credibility when we know bailing out is our favourite sport.

Being true to ourself is all about credibility, even when others don’t see it. If we’re just going to go around and break every fitness or dietary commitment, then reality simply won’t conform to our words.

Here are three points to consider when making a commitment to change:

  1. Trust the integrity of your commitment. If you can’t rely on yourself to commit to a lifestyle change, then you won’t succeed in other areas of your life. Lack of consistency in this area will spill over into relationships with others as well. Your commitment is everything, even to yourself. Never break it.
  2. Change depends on trust. If people distrust a leader, they will refuse that person’s influence. In the same way, if you cannot trust yourself, then you cannot believe in your commitment. You have to create trust in your own words to bear them out.
  3. Change depends on influence. Leaders impact others through positive influence. A leader is someone who will do the same he asks of others, so to change your own behaviour, you must do things differently. Influence your own mind through doing the necessary, and sometimes unpleasant things that bring about change.

These points may seem small, but they will have a huge influence on your behaviour if implemented. Unreliable behaviour with others usually has a negative influence on us, and so it will on yourself if you cannot be true to your commitment. You have to be able to count on yourself to have success in everything of real and lasting value in your life. Start today!