Does a failure to follow through on your own commitments mean you lack personal integrity? Some people think so. Today I’m sharing why that thinking is not only faulty, it’s harmful. What’s really happening when you have a pattern of putting off your own commitments, and why does the difference matter?

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Have you ever come across a piece of content that just didn't quite

sit right with you and you wondered if anyone else was also

bothered by it? Well, this happened to me last year. I came

across a reel on Instagram by a productivity expert that

I like and I respect. Now he said, following

through on your own commitments is having personal

integrity. Now, if you've listened to.

Episodes of mine, or if you're on my email list, you might get a sense

of why this message raises a red flag for me.

And here's the thing. I started to actually

write a post about this message, my reaction to this,

and it was last year, kind of as soon as I saw it, but I

didn't actually publish it. And instead I chose to

just sit back, think about my reaction and whether this was

more of just a personal trigger reaction I was having, or if it was

genuinely something worth talking about publicly.

Well, it turns out all these months later, I'm still thinking about it

and I find that it comes up in conversation and I think it does

matter. So today I'm sharing why I think this idea isn't

just faulty, but can actually be harmful.

So let me start by saying that I do not believe

there is any harmful intent behind the message. In fact,

let's start with the message and the

intent, or at least the intent as I believe it. So first, the

message itself. It's that a lot of people will follow

through on commitments they make to other people, but when they

have their own commitments, they will tend to put off, delay, or

brush aside. And following through on

what you say you will do is personal integrity.

So in other words, keeping your own commitments is a form

of personal integrity. On the surface,

I can see why this message will land with some people.

It's about honoring your commitments and it's about treating them as

valuable as the ones that you keep to other people. It's about sticking to

your plan, even when you might not feel like it on the days when

you just don't want to. It's also a way to

connect with somebody's desired identity, the person they want to be.

You might hear that and think, yes, I want to be a person who keeps

my commitments. I am a person with integrity, and

doing what I say I'll do matters to me.

Okay, so far, not so bad.

But what happens when I rephrase this message a little bit and

I say, not following through on your own commitments

shows a lack of personal integrity?

This is where my inner alarm bell starts to go off.

It's when we invert it. And this is where I

think language really matters and the words we use

matter. So let's take a closer look at this word

integrity, because that's really key here. Now in the

dictionary, I looked up a couple of different definitions. So

Merriam-Webster talks about integrity as firm adherence

to a code of especially moral or artistic values.

Oxford Languages says the quality of being honest and

having strong moral principles.

So. Integrity is tied to morality, and

morality is about right and wrong. Now,

if you heard someone say, "That person,

they lack personal integrity," what do you think of?

Maybe you think, well, that person's then probably the kind of person who

might cheat or lie or steal,

a person who lacks principles. Or an unethical person.

I don't know. That's what I think of when I hear a person lacks integrity.

I think about ethics and I think about someone who behaves unethically.

Now, you might argue that keeping your word and doing what you'll

say you'll do is a principle you want to abide by, but

is it an ethical or moral one? And where,

where do you actually draw the line? Is procrastinating

on a personal project a moral failure,

or is skipping your workout unethical?

If you told me that you've been struggling to follow through on your morning

meditation practice, and I said, well, you must lack personal

integrity, how would that feel to you?

And look, there are many reasons that a person struggles to follow through on their

personal commitments that have nothing to do with

morality. Does a person who knows what to do, but

they lack the skills to do it, if they don't follow through, do they

lack personal integrity? Or does a person with ADHD or

maybe depression whose neurotransmitters are making it difficult

to start a personal task lack integrity when

they don't follow through? Or how about a person who

hesitates because they've got a subconscious fear and they're holding

themselves back? Do they lack personal integrity? When they don't follow through.

And you might argue that personal integrity is

about doing whatever you can to solve these issues in order to see through

your commitments. But I think it's harmful to imply

that a lack of follow-through means a lack of integrity. And as

soon as you connect these two things, you connect following through to

morals, then it becomes about good and bad.

And I know firsthand the pain and the shame

of not following through on your own commitments. And I know that it can

be harmful to your self-concept, to how you see

yourself. And I know how easy it is to think, well,

there must be something wrong with me if I just can't get it together.

So what happens when a person who's already struggling

and likely feels shame about it hears that they

lack personal integrity? What if

instead of that message, they were told, "There are

many reasons that you can struggle to follow through, and moral failures

are not the reason, that you are not bad or wrong."

The message matters and the words we use matter. And in this

case, I think it's helpful to think maybe more

about values instead of ethics. So when you're struggling

to keep your own commitments, you are acting out of alignment

with your values. Now values vary from person to person.

They're different depending on who you are, and you can make

choices of how you spend your time based on your

values. So when you make a commitment about what you will

do with your time, but then you brush it aside, well, you are

acting out of alignment. And let's say that you value health

and you want to stick to a fitness plan. Well, when you skip workouts, it's

not unethical, but it is out of alignment. And so it

can feel bad, but it's not wrong. I think there's a

difference there. And even if we think in terms of

values, not following through isn't because you

lack values, just like it's not because you lack

integrity. You don't follow through because you are facing

logical, biological, or psychological roadblock. And when you don't

understand or see those reasons, you might

start to think that you are wrong and that you've failed yourself,

or that you can't keep promises or commitments to yourself. You might

start to believe that you lack integrity when you

can't see or understand the reasons that you are struggling,

but that's also the wrong conclusion. What you

actually lack is an appropriate solution.

This could be one of two things. First, you might not yet know

the reason that you're not following through, or two, you know the reason,

but you haven't been able to solve it yet. So

let's say that you do buy into this belief that you lack integrity.

How do you go about solving it? Well, you would find a

way to follow through, which means identifying the roadblock that you're facing,

and solving for it. That's the exact

same approach whether you believe the cause is that you are missing an

appropriate solution or the cause is that you lack integrity.

And I don't know about you, but I would much

rather believe the cause is that I just haven't found the appropriate

solution yet rather than thinking that there is something morally wrong

with me. Two paths with very

different energy. Now if you're listening to me and

you think I'm having maybe a strong or outsized reaction to this

message, well, it's because I do feel very

strongly that the language matters. And

if you don't see it that way, that is okay. But I'm sharing this because

for a long time when I struggled to follow through on things,

I did believe there was something really wrong with me, that I was broken and

bad. And if somebody I respected came along and

said, you lack personal integrity, that

would compound the shame that I was already feeling

inside. And it doesn't actually inspire me to search

for a solution. It just kind of says, well, yeah, you're

wrong. It would actually just reaffirm that I am the cause of

my struggles. Now, instead, if

someone were to say, You're not broken, wrong, or bad. You're just

focusing on the wrong solution. Here are some possible ways that

you are getting stuck, so let's figure them out so that we can find something

that works for you. Now that is a message that I can get

behind, and that's a message that can help me

find and keep momentum.