What is Integrity to Me?

This is a post on integrity, there's a lot of backstory surrounding that word, and if you don't know what I'm talking about ask me sometime. Anyways, here's what the word is for me:

In general: At its most basic form, integrity for me is doing the things you said you'd do. At its roots, that's what it is.

More than that though, it's also doing what you know to do and doing what others expect from you, even if you haven't specifically told anyone (e.g. If you're given the responsibility of babysitting, you're expected to spend a certain amount of time with the baby/checking on it, even if you haven't literally said to the parents you'd do so).

Now moving on from that, if you're someone who values integrity, it means the moment you know you can't do something that you said you'd do, you let the people know that need to know. From there you can either figure out a new time, or cancel whatever plans you had, but the most important thing is that you both are on the same page.

Now I'd like to share some of what integrity means for my own life in several different areas:

Family: It means keeping in contact with my mom/dad/brother/sister in some way/shape/form every week. It means calling my dad back when I miss his call, it means seeing them in person and doing something with them every few weeks.

Friends: For my friends who I'm with more often, it means meeting-up with them at the time we agreed upon. It means holding up my end of the deal if anything's expected of me. For my friends I don't get to see so much, it's about giving them a call at least once every couple weeks. About meeting up with them at least once a month to catch up and hang out.

Job: For my job it means showing up early and clocking in on time. If I'm late, it's about calling my manager ahead of time, the moment I know I'll be late. It's about getting shift coverages with people long in advanced, when I know I can't make work one day. Also, when I'm told to do a task, it's about doing it as efficiently as possible (quickly and completely).

I also wanted to post about my approach to integrity in the past/present/future.

Past: I was rarely someone you could count on. I showed up late to things, I said I'd do things and never would, I'd procrastinate, I'd come up with a million excuses why I wouldn't do anything. I'd only do something I said I'd do if I felt like it in the moment.

Present: I've gone through a lot of personal training, experience, and realizations -- but I've become much better about integrity. I have calendars now, and regularly schedule things in without conflict. Recently I've been much better about talking to people when I can't get something complete on time, or if something comes up. I've become much more reliable and easy-to-count on.

Future: My future is one where I'm a complete person of integrity. Rarely letting things slip through the cracks, always doing what I said I'd do, or being in full communication with everyone associated with something I have to change the scheduling on. Being able to stand up again quickly and effortlessly whenever my integrity starts to fall.

It occurs to me while writing this that the vibe given off by someone who lives like this may involve words such as: uptight, inflexible, overthinker, etc.

But you can easily pull this off without being that way. For me, when I really started taking this approach to life, here's the only things that changed:

1) I got a calendar.
2) I USED the calendar. Whenever making plans, I'd go to my room, grab a pen, and mark it down, if I already had something planned for that day, I'd avoid double-booking on-the-spot (saves so much trouble).
3) I CHECKED the calendar. I quickly realized that in order to have integrity work, you actually have to take several seconds every once in a while to see what's planned out over the next week or so. You can't count on your brain remembering, there are always things that slip through the cracks.
4) Action. Taking a look at what you need to get done, and actually doing it. This is both the easiest and hardest part. It's easy because it is. It gets hard when you start coming up with excuses and reasons to not get things done (e.g. I didn't feel like it, I'll do it later, something came up). At the end of the day integrity is about doing. It's about taking action. Without action or doing, nothing moves.

Be a person of integrity,

Make things move. Do.