Is Honesty Your Core Value?

0
7044
Core Value of Honesty

What Does Honesty As A Core Value
Really Mean? 

Honesty is telling the truth, being upright, candid and sincere with what you say and do. The art of being honest is an asset which almost everyone would admire.  If honesty is one of your core values it would be a guiding force in your life. Your level of honesty would influence the decision you make and the relationships you enjoy with others. It helps you determine what’s right and wrong, what’s moral and what you admit to being true.

Just imagine if you could never tell a lie. If you had to be honest in everything you said and did. Would the world be a better place? Most of us look for honesty in our relationships. Keen to learn more about the real significance of honesty as a core value I investigated it in technicolour detail and here’s the fascinating information I discovered.

Should Honesty Be a Core Value?

Sometimes being honest is one of the most testing things we can do, especially if we’re not telling the truth out of empathy for someone.

Not telling the truth can vary from merely telling someone you’re running 20 minutes late when in fact you’re 60 minutes away, to proposing to someone after telling them you’re single when you’re in fact married.

“You might not tell the truth for a whole host of reasons”

Your ability to be truthful even if doing so will put you in a bad light, defines whether it’s one of your core values. If it is, it will dedicate how you interact with people and how people view you.Active healthy happy life

Click this link to discover moreThe first step towards honesty is being honest with yourself so that you can live an active, healthy and happy life. It’s about understanding why you behave the way you do and telling yourself the truth no matter how ugly it looks. I found some amazing tools that will help you live a fruitful and more authentic life. Hit his link  to discover more

Your character and personality traits can also play a part in your ability, to be honest.

“appreciating the benefit of telling the truth is an excellent character trait”

Total Honesty As A Core Can Be Challenging

A Pastor told me how he lied to his wife after being asked if he had peeled potatoes, ” yes, of course, I have dear” he said when in fact he hadn’t. He explained he’d told “a little white lie” so that he could convince his wife that he was capable of helping out with the housework.

You might be dishonest for a whole host of reasons. Perhaps like the pastor you don’t want to appear incompetent so you tell your boss that you’ve finished the work when in fact you haven’t.

However, thinking about the consequences of not telling the truth, may help you to appreciate why you should become more trustworthy.

“being honest with yourself and others matters and here’s why.”

Telling lies can, in severe cases, have a catastrophic effect on your life and the lives of the people around you. It can harm or destroy trust and leave the people you care about feeling betrayed. It can cause anxiety and even depression for both you and the person being lied to.

  • Consider whether your dishonesty harms someone else?
  • Even if it doesn’t, what does it do to your integrity and your feeling of self-worth?

You might not be honest because you don’t want to appear incompetent or seem as if you’re letting people down. But whatever it is, being honest with yourself and others matters.

Understanding the benefits of being honest can make an incredible difference in how your life plays out. People will value your opinion more because they know they can rely on you to say what you think. They can turn to you in times of crisis because you have the backbone to tell it how it is.

Being honest as a fundamental value should however come with sensitivity. So telling someone they’re too fat and should stop eating is not a positive way forward and risk getting you alienated.

Life is full of ups and downs but amidst it all, it’s important to find balance, that sweet place where you can feel whole and in sync. To find some tools that will help you find that sweet spot click this link…..

Honesty and Trust core values

These tools ask you the question of whether you want to live longer, happier and healthier? Do you want to improve your life? Do you want to learn the secrets that will make this all possible? While many people would love to be happier and healthier and improve their life, they simply don’t know how to achieve the broad picture. This amazing read will help you with Everything you need to know about love, life, and work including:

Personal core values
click the image to discover more….
  • Friendships
  • Love and Faith
  • Work and Waste
  • Mental Attitude

Click this link to discover more 

How Do You Know If Someone Is Honest?

Honesty Relationships core values

If honesty forms a part of your core values fairness and integrity are important. Without such values, it’s difficult to see how we can truly be happy.

A friend told me about her relationship with a man around ten years younger than her. At first, she struggled to overcome their age gap feeling that he was too immature and not a good match for her.

What made matters worse, was that he had an addictive personality and she enjoyed being around him. She found it impossible not to develop strong feelings for him. 

What helped their relationship to grow was his ability to help her find places to perform.  He was a successful entrepreneur who had his own radio show and marketing company, and she was a singer-songwriter who needed help launching her career.

Discover love and personal core values
Click to discover more

“messing with her head” and undermining her self confidence.”

One day, she came to me in tears accusing him of cheating on her. She caught him flirting with another woman and later noticed that they were both on social media together at the same time.

He flatly denied having a relationship and accused her of being paranoid and crazy. Over the month she became so cut up about being used by someone she cared about. Although she remained convinced, that he was cheating on her but she continued the relationship.

But it left her feeling depressed and confused.

The issue my friend was grappling with was a massive disconnect between her gut feeling that she was being lied to and what she was being told.

How could she tell he was not being honest to her?

The answer is it’s often difficult to tell unless the person is caught red-handed.

How Honesty As A Core Value
Builds Respect

Respect honesty and core values

We can earn people’s respect when we show our vulnerability, by being sincere. For my friend,  struggled with finding respect in her relationship. To make things worst she blamed herself for what was happening

Although she confronted him about it he denied ever having spoken with the other women and become even more offensive towards her. Their relationship continued in the same vein with accusations of mistrust and paranoia being bandied around.

Eventually, she felt she had to end the relationship because she just couldn’t bear the thought of being treated.

“very meaningful interaction we have with others should be about earning their respect”

However, I witnessed my friend crumble under the pressure as if being tortured, her confidence broke down, and her self esteem was at rock bottom.

Every meaningful interaction we have with others should be about earning their respect and honesty forms a large part of it. So too does;

  • Empowering them.
  • Having a positive attitude towards them.
  • Making them feel valued.

Meaningful Relationships Based Around
Honesty

Fully appreciating the effect that dishonesty can have on the people around you is a massive deal.  My friend’s experience shows how negative being dishonest can be.

Fundamental to any meaningful relationship is trust driven, by a need to bring added value to others.

In his book How to Win Friends and Influence People Dale Carnegie extols that genuine friendships happen when we make other people feel important—and do it sincerely.

“work hard to avoid not
being open.”

Sincerity means being upfront with people and speaking to them in terms of their interests. Being genuinely interested in people is also a crucial part of building powerful relationships.

Practising honesty as a core value means you are acutely aware of the problems and issues associated with not being honest and work hard to avoid not being open.

Personal Achievement and core values
Click this link to discover more

As a Christian, I practise honesty as a core value, although I’m not always successful at it I try as much as possible. The Bible provides helpful scriptures that help us understand the significance of honesty.

Proverbs 12:22 ESV states: 

“Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.”

To some extent, being honest is down to your character traits.

Honesty Is Not Only A Core Value It’s
A Character Trait.

Friends and honesty with core values

Your character is your inward-facing, our private persona. Unlike your personality such as having a fun, humourous bubbly personality your character is not easy for others to determine from their initial interaction with you. They have to get to know you before they can see it.

Your character is self-evident from your behaviour and relates to things such as your honesty, beliefs, morality, attitude, value systems and integrity.

“Everyone has both positive and negative character traits”

Your character comes from what we learn and observe while growing up. It’s influenced by institutions such as schools and religious or spiritual organisations, our parents and our social connections.

It, therefore, plays a part in whether we are honest or dishonest.

Everyone has both positive and negative character traits and ones that range in between. You might say the following about someone’s character:

“The most commendable thing about him is that he’s conscientious, has a strong sense of compassion, honesty and consideration for others.”

“You can build good character which starts by being honest”

“I admire her because she is gentle, has so much integrity, she’s honest, moral and upstanding”.

You can build good character which starts by being honest with yourself and others no matter how difficult it can be.  

How To Identify Whether Someone Has A
Honest Character

Honesty not only as a core value but also as a character trait is highly sought after.  It is possible to change your character traits so you build more solid meaningful relationships.

But people don’t wear their character on their sleeve and our inherent tendency to put our best self forward. What this means, particularly if you’re around people for short periods, they can often appear to have excellent personal qualities.

So we can appear honest when we’re not.

“we can begin to unmask their real character.”

Sometimes our propensity to want to believe the best of people often clouds our judgement. This can lead us to come to entirely the wrong conclusion about their identity.

Guided Meditation and core values
Click the link to discover more…..

However, when we’re around people for extended periods, we can begin to unmask their real character. This allows us to begin to process whether they’re dishonest and establish a more realistic picture of who people truly are.

So, if you have a tendency of being dishonest, then this will come out when people get to know them better.

Character traits are not affected by external factors such as your background, your income, your job, or how smart you are. Most of us judge people by their appearance.

“Take a moment, and think about what negative character traits you might have.”

This means most of us will automatically assume that a priest will act with honesty and dignity. One would hope this is the case. However, there are countless stories of priests who exhibit shocking behaviour and have shown quite the opposite characteristics.

Take a moment, and think about what negative character traits you might have.

Is one of them dishonest?

Now imagine these character traits floating above your head like individual bubbles and slowly drifting away out of sight.

Click this link to discover how this technique can help you overcome negative character traits.

Here Is A List Of Positive And Negative Character Traits To Help You Identify Yours.

POSITIVE CHARACTER TRAITS

Respectfulness, Honesty, Integrity, Optimism, Loyalty, Responsibility, Fairness, Humility, Compassion, Kindness, Courageousness, Self-discipline, Generosity, Lovingness, Authenticity, Self-discipline, Conscientiousness, Perseverance, Forgiveness, Forgiveness, Gentleness

NEGATIVE CHARACTER TRAITS

Dishonesty, Selfishness, Egocentric, Inconsiderate, Arrogant, Vain, Patronising, Cynical, confrontational, insensitive, Domineering, Bossy, Untrustworthy, Dishonest, Dogmatic, Intolerant, Narrow-minded, Obstinate, Insensitive, Unreliable, Aggressive, Resentful, Irresponsible, Indecisive

“Our best self represents being honest, valuing others”

An important question is how then we can evolve so we can change our character to survive and grow emotionally?

If honesty is not one of our core values, it’s easy to lose sight of what is right and wrong. We can fall into the trap of putting our own selfish needs first and leave sight of what really matters. It’s about being honest, but also acting with sincerity and valuing and respecting others.

Honesty Can Come At Our Lowest Point

Sometimes it’s when we’re at our lowest point, faced with abject failure that forces us to change.

“Even if you don’t always do what is “right” you at least say and do what you believe in.”

But if you choose to continue to make excuses for being dishonest, you’ll compromise meaningful relationships you can build. Not only that you can hurt the people closest to you and prevent people from seeing what makes you special. Being totally honest might make you feel vulnerable, but it can set you free and allow people to experience the authentic you.

Your real friends will love and accept you for who you are. We are none of us perfect so you’re not always going to do what is “right” but at the very least, you can hold your head up high be honest.

If you would like help finding the authentic you one where you’re true to yourself and make a difference to the people around you click here.