We all lie every day. Small lies. White lies. No one gets hurt lies. Like, “I’m sorry, there was horrible traffic,” when we’re really late because we overslept. Oversleeping is within our control - horrible traffic is not really. We don’t want to take responsibility for oversleeping, so we point the finger at traffic - whether it was bad or not. We find excuses for the things we refuse to “own.”

Last week I got a new trainer when I joined the gym. I get two free sessions with her and she is awesome. I want to do all she’s given me to do and I want to get in shape for myself. So when I was on the treadmill and was hurting and sweating that little voice popped into my head at 24 minutes and said, “Let’s don’t go the whole 30 minutes and say we did. What’s 6 minutes?” Indeed….what is 6 minutes? It’s a lot. How often have you said, “Let’s don’t and say we did.” Let’s don’t go to the meeting or dinner or conference, and say we did. Let’s don’t follow the diet tonight, and say we did. Let’s don’t study and say we did….

I got two forms from someone today with a note, “Some people said they didn’t receive this email, in case you didn’t, here are the forms, please fill them out.” The easy out to look good and shift the “blame” of not completing and returning the forms on time would be to say, “No, I didn’t get them either.” But I did. So I replied, “Yes, I did get them, but I’ve been busy (true) and just forgot. I’ll take care of them today.” I owned the fault and felt better for that. I feel bad for getting so busy and being disorganized, but I own that too.

You might say, “What’s the big deal?” They won’t care why you didn’t get the forms back as long as you do. That may be true, but integrity begins with the little things. Why should I lie about something so small? And if I will lie so easily about something small, then won’t I eventually lie about something bigger?

In the scheme of things, maybe it’s not important to you. But I’m learning that having integrity with ourselves changes us. That integrity spreads to our relationships and our lives. It makes us better people, stronger people. We don’t have to, or need to lie. We stand in our power when we take responsibility. Isn’t that something to work for?

Let’s don’t and say we didn’t. Let’s do and say we did. Let’s be honest with ourselves first and foremost and see what happens.