The Year of Integrity – Three Thoughts for Thursday – January 2024

A few years ago, I was inspired to choose a word to represent a theme of work I wanted to engage in for the year. One year it was ‘align’ as I am fully committed to my personal growth journey and striving to align the inside with what shows up on the outside. Last year it was a continuation or deeper dive, in a way, as I worked from ‘align’ to ‘intentional.’ Last year, I chose to focus on really acting with intention as I aligned my inner and outer games and strove to be more authentic. This year, the journey continues as I want to really hone in on how alignment and intention are connected or interwoven and dependent upon each other. I want to keep striving towards authenticity, alignment, and intentionality, refining and defining my true self, discovering, unearthing, and sculpting the inner character I want to know and see, and I want others to also know and see in me. With this in mind, I am kicking off the year with the word and theme, “Integrity,” and my reading, pondering, and listening are reflective of this year’s theme.

When I think about ‘integrity’ I think about being really honest with one’s self, acting in accordance with one’s values and character, being authentic and transparent, fully oneself. Martha Beck defines integrity as “a word that simply means ‘wholeness.’” She notes that “Integrity is the cure for unhappiness. Period.” In that vain, Beck offers that integrity is the cure for unhappiness in that “[i]ntegrity gives us purpose, emotional healing, and a life free of mental suffering.”  This fall, I taught a course on leadership and used the book, Mastering Leadership. My favorite part and premise of this book aligned with Beck’s notion of integrity; the authors, Anderson and Adams, framed it as the “inner game controls the outer game.” I liked this framing and the focus placed by this concept and the concept of integrity, on the inner work, our inner truth, being diligent and intentional about the formation of our inner character and sense of self, and the impact and power to change everything that being focused on our truth and living by this truth has to offer. I am inspired and feel supported to stay on this journey and path of creating a strong inner game and maintaining integrity in order to author my authentic story.

Are you living with integrity, true to yourself? What does it feel like to live with integrity? What does it feel like to do life without this type of integrity and truth? Do you know your purpose? What feelings or emotions are evoked when you think of your purpose (or lack of purpose)? If you know your purpose, what has your journey been like? What has the journey taught you? If not, are you seeking purpose? How deep into the journey are you? Who and what are supporting you? What support do you need? What causes you mental suffering? What emotional healing do you need to do? What emotional healing has been most instrumental to your journey? What work do you need to do to improve your “inner game”? What is your next step on your path to becoming your best self? What will it feel like to accomplish this next step? What will you do to celebrate?

Quote(s) I’m pondering:

THERE IS A MOMENT
OF BRAVERY
WHEN YOU LIVE YOUR STORY
UNAPPOLOGETICALLY.
WHEN YOU DECIDE TO EMBRACE
THE THINGS THAT MAKE YOU UNIQUE.
WHEN YOU LIVE WITH COURAGE 
AND DEEP GRACE.
YOUR STORY IS A BEAUTIFUL THING.
LIVE IT PROUDLY
LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO HIDE.
BE BRAVE, MY FRIEND.

~ RACHEL MARIE MARTIN ~
FINDINGJOY.NET
THE BRAVE ART OF MOTHERHOOD

What I’m listening to:

How to Set & Achieve Goals: 2 Surprising Science-Backed Steps You Must Follow

The Mel Robbins Podcast Hosted by Mel Robbins, January 3, 2024

Do you want to know how to set your goals so you can easily achieve them?

Do you want the only 2 science-backed steps you need to hit your goals?

Have no idea what your goals are or where to even start?

This episode is a comprehensive toolkit that will help you set the goals that inspire you. You’ll feel excited about what’s ahead and what you need to do to achieve it. You’ll not only learn the correct way to set goals according to research, but by the end of the episode, you will have even taken the first steps toward your goal.

In this episode, Mel covers:

• How to set goals the right way and get incredible results.
• Why goal-setting is so important, based on decades of research.
• The most exciting new research on goals will change how you approach the new year or any new project you want to tackle.
• The 3 goals for 2024 that Mel highlights as the most important.
• The 4 science-backed hacks to use when you’re not sure what your goals should be.
• The 3 things all successful goals should have.
• 2 components of a goal that almost guarantee you will achieve it.
• Why neuroscience says your brain needs these 2 components of a goal.
• The 5 mistakes you (and everyone else) make when you set goals.
• A powerful question about goals from Columbia University researchers.
• The most important thing you should do as soon as you set your goal.
• This is an encore episode with new and exciting insights from Mel at the top of the episode.

This episode also comes with a 29-page companion workbook. This workbook is designed using the latest research to help you get clear about what you want and empower you to take the next step forward in your life. And the cool part? It takes less than a minute for you to get your hands on it. Sign up for the workbook at http://www.melrobins.com/bestyear

My notes and key takeaways:

I love goals, any time of the year! I appreciated hearing a new approach to consider and downloaded her workbook to take a look at and test out. Join me for the experiment, and tell me what you think!

What I’m reading:

The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self

By Martha Beck

In The Way of Integrity, Martha Beck shows us how having integrity – a word that simply means “wholeness” – gives us purpose, emotional healing, and a life free of mental suffering. She presents a clear-cut process anyone can use to regain integrity and overcome lifelong patterns like people-pleasing, self-sabotage, destructive habits, and feeling stuck. All of these dysfunctions arise when we lose touch with what truly makes us feel whole.

My initial thoughts (I’m still reading…):

Already by page 4, this book is speaking to me. “The most common reason we end up feeling this way [empty, depressed, physically sick, lost] is by doing what we’re “supposed to. We learn from our culture how a good person is supposed to behave, and we behave that way. Then we expect the promised rewards: happiness, health, prosperity, true love, solid self-esteem.” I often ponder, what I refer to as the “shoulds,” and have written about this topic before. I have reflected on past experiences and what I had expected to gain from various endeavors. My favorite quote is from Richard Rohr, “Suffering comes from unmet expectations.”

 I’m excited for a new lens and new tools to support my path out of the “shoulds” and my work to steer clear of them in my future travels. As I mentioned at the beginning of this Three Thoughts, I have been working to get to know myself and create who I aspire to be, I have committed to aligning, to living with intentionality, and this feels like the next step in that work, to live with integrity, to live in wholeness with purpose, free of mental suffering because I am being true to myself and doing the work to heal old wounds. This book feels like just the support I am looking for in my journey as I kick off this new year.

From Amazon:

‘This radiant book will not only change your life, but perhaps even save it’ Elizabeth Gilbert

‘Martha Beck’s genius is that her writing is equal parts comforting and challenging. A teacher, a mother, a sage, she holds our hand as she leads us back home to ourselves’ Glennon Doyle

_____________________

Bestselling author, life coach and sociologist Martha Beck explains why ‘integrity’ – being in harmony with ourselves – is the key to a meaningful and joyful life

In The Way of Integrity, Beck presents a four-stage process that anyone can use to find integrity, and with it, a sense of purpose, emotional healing, and a life free of mental suffering. Much of what plagues us-people pleasing, staying in stale relationships, negative habits-all point to what happens when we are out of touch with what truly makes us feel whole.

Inspired by The Divine Comedy, Beck uses Dante’s classic hero’s journey as a framework to break down the process of attaining personal integrity into small, manageable steps. She shows how to read our internal signals that lead us towards our true path, and to recognize what we actually yearn for versus what our culture sells us.

With techniques tested on hundreds of her clients, Beck brings her expertise as a social scientist, life coach, and human being to help readers uncover what integrity looks like in their own lives. She takes us on a spiritual adventure that not only will change the direction of our lives, but bring us to a place of genuine happiness.

~

You can sign up to receive my Three Thoughts for Thursday post as an email on the third Thursday of every month by clicking here.  If you’ve missed any of my Three Thoughts, you can find them all on my blog.  If you enjoyed this post, take a look at December’s Three Thoughts, which includes a recap of the year in each category. Take a look at my post, The Climb. You may also be interested in reading my four-part Lessons of the Run series – Endurance, Resilience, Rest, and Grit.

If you are interested or know someone who may be interested, I also offer leadership and emotional intelligence coaching and workshops. You can find more information on my website, or you can use this link to set up a free 30-minute introduction to coaching session.
 
Last year, I celebrated the 5^th anniversary of my stroke with the writing of this commemorative post, a training run, flowers, pie, and special time with my kids.  I continued the celebration by running the Boston Marathon in April, five years after I ran the course for the first time (six weeks after my stroke). Please join me in celebrating these milestones by taking time to celebrate your own milestones and by fully embracing the opportunities in front of you, the value in the little things, and the beauty that surrounds you in this wonderful, messy life. I will forever be grateful for my stroke and the path of integrity I found in its wake.
 
Last September, I hosted my first local, in-person event here in the Seattle area, Savor the Sweetness.  I hosted the event again and had a different but equally fulfilling experience; I think I will be making this an annual event! Contact me for more information or to join the invite list!
 
I have the privilege of hosting the Emotional Intelligence Special Interest Group for ICFLA.  We closed out this year’s sessions on October 24^th with guest, Kevin Bush of Teams and Leaders, as he shared with us how we can better Navigate Reactionary Situations and Employ Empathy in the Workplace and continue the EI learning journey. Our next guest will be Heather Backstrom, author of Collaborative Confidence, who will workshop her process of creating a stakeholder map leveraging emotions to take stock of, and shift relationships to have a greater impact.  You do not need to be a coach or a member of ICFLA to attend these sessions. Please join me for our sessions in 2024!
  
If you are interested in joining and co-creating these learning communities, please use the links above to learn more about ICFLA’s Emotional Intelligence Special Interest Group and the Women’s Events. I hope you will come along for the journey!
 
I’m always looking for new inspiration, new books to read, and new podcasts to listen to, so please send your suggestions my way or comment on this post to offer some new recommendations!
 
As always, thank you for your continued support and readership! Stay strong, stay brave, stay true to you!
 
Wishing you a season of purpose, emotional healing, freedom from mental suffering, a season of wholeness and integrity! Thank you for being a part of my journey!