What’s the one quality you must have to successfully complete a transformation that changes you both on the outside and inside?
Many people would suggest things like perseverance, optimism, work ethic, discipline, high pain threshold, stuff like that. But I believe that the most important quality to success is TRUTH.
By TRUTH, I am talking about more than honesty. Here is an acronym that might help you to understand what I’m driving at. Truth is a character trait that is:
Total
Real
Unwavering
Trustworthy
Honesty
You’ve heard the saying that “The truth shall set you free?” Well, that’s what we’re really talking about here. Truth begins at home. It is much more than cash register honesty. Truth is being true to yourself, by not living a lie, by owning up to your shortcomings, by honoring all self-promises.
See, most people think that being truthful is just not telling lies to others, but TRUTH requires more than that. To have the character trait of TRUTH, you need to tell the truth to others, but the whole truth as well. Allowing another to have a wrong conclusions simply because you chose to stay silent is not TRUTH. TRUTH speaks out, even though it may harm the speaker to do so. THe most important person to be truthful with is you. Did you ever stop to think that in order to tell another a lie you first have to tell yourself one–you have to tell yourself that you are justified in telling that lie.
Lies are always revealed, which means that ultimately TRUTH wins out.
So no doubt you are wondering how it could be that TRUTH is such an important quality in a simple diet and exercise plan? Primarily it is because you have so many opportunities to fudge on the program, both overtly and covertly. You can simply choose to openly have an unauthorized food that is consumed in public in front of those who know you’re not supposed to eat it, or you can do it at home, late at night when no one is looking, and stuff yourself with your favorite food medication. Ice cream, toast with peanut butter melted on it, cookies, fudge, whatever! This behavior is even worse than the covert consumption in public, because you not only do wrong, but you take steps to cover it up. The ice cream box goes deep down in the trash and peanut butter is way back in the back of the cupboard–”no one will know.” Well, the one person who knows is YOU, and this type of activity, especially when it becomes secret, is deadly to your own self confidence and your own ability to ever keep promises. This is the perfect example of the great recovery saying, “You are only as sick as the secrets you keep.”
TRUTH does NOT come naturally to any of us. That’s why we find life so frustrating. We punish our children for lying to us, and the same day find ourselves lying to another about our intentions or what we did that day. TRUTH SETS US FREE, and the opposite enslaves us, and it also frustrates us, especially when we are trying to achieve a big goal.
There is much evil in the world, and some measure of it is coming from the insides of us. And when it does, when “Bad Mike” comes out instead of the person I had hoped to be that day, I disappoint myself for sure. But there is also much good in the world, and some of that is inside us as well. The key is to grow the good and starve the bad. Frankly, that’s the main reason that we should do anonymous deeds of charity during a challenge. Doing good intentionally creates and grows goodness in us and it starves the bad in us. And starving the bad gives you the chance to become a person of TRUTH.