Would you say you’re someone with integrity?
Recently, I was thinking about this sort of “blind faith” we put on workers in the food and beverage industry. I was eating some hot sauce, thinking “Damn that’s good!”, then wondering what stops someone from putting some addictive substance in my food so that I keep buying it.
I’m not here to start conspiracy theories but to ponder and this stream of consciousness lead me to considering each of our levels of integrity. I became curious about a different form of integrity though. A sense of integrity towards ourselves.
In this blog, I’d like to share my thoughts on what I’m calling “Personal Integrity” for now. I’ll share what it is and how you can start building habits that are right for you. My belief is that your true self is a balance between who you are and who you say you are. Finding this balance creates peace and confidence.
As always, I don’t have all the answers, but I hope my expedition to try finding them in my life, inspires you to start the search in your own.
If you enjoy these blogs and would like to support my pondering, I’d greatly appreciate it!
Moral vs Personal Integrity
To have integrity is to do the right thing even when no one is watching. Or as the dictionary says: the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.
Your integrity is determined, in part by the outside world. Others have to observe you doing the things you say you do.
I can believe I have integrity all I want, but if my actions don’t match the words, other people notice the lack of it. You can easily fake integrity by only doing the right thing when people are watching, then the opposite when alone, thus not having integrity. So the only genuine way to have integrity is to act the same when with people and when alone.
Moral integrity is a complex idea that I will not be diving into in this blog, although I am reading a book on moral relativism and absolutism, so maybe soon…
Personal integrity is what I want to focus on. Now, I’m sure there’s likely already a name for this concept and has been thoroughly written about, but I want to share my thoughts and ideas before I do any research on the topic. I like to temporarily feel like I have original thought before the world shows me otherwise.
To do the right thing for yourself, even when no one is watching. To be authentic when you’re alone and with others. This is how I’m defining personal integrity right now.
If we’re talking about habits and personality traits, a person with integrity will be a unanimous being, never swaying from their true nature. The person they say they are is the person they truly are. The habits they claim to pursue are the habits they genuinely pursue, to the extent they say. A person who does what is right for them will not seek external validation to prove who they are and that what they do is beneficial. Everything this person does comes from a state of intention, observation, and awareness of their actions.
Why should you want to live with personal integrity? Loss of inner turmoil. Ridding yourself of the burden of having to carry the weight of every personality you hold and putting on a show for each person you meet. To feel the weightlessness of being yourself. To never question your choices in the moment, accepting the consequences, and being able to adjust with ease. Drop any fear of what the future may hold because you’re confident in your ability to do what’s right in every moment.
Or maybe that’s only what I gained from starting this process. Maybe trying to follow in my footsteps won’t help you at all. Is the possibility of feeling what I now feel not worth the attempt?
But how do you know what is right?
The “Right” Habits
First the subjective answer that words cannot describe. The answer no writer could ever type to resonate perfectly with another person.
I know my habits are genuine because they feel right. Yes, I know that simply because something feels right, doesn’t mean it is right. All of my habits are ever changing. I never cling to them. I am always open to being shown that what I’m doing has a better way of doing it. So, if one day I find discipline, control of my impulses, and Stoicism do not reflect who I am any longer or if I find the opposites are true instead, I’ll gladly accept that fate.
There is no tension within me when I perform my habits or when I interact with the world. I don’t worry about choices I may or may not make in the future. Regret rarely shows itself anymore because I know I acted authentically in the moment. That’s not to say I don’t make mistakes, I do, but I know all I have to do is stay aware, learn, and try again.
A habit that is wrong for me brings various forms of emotions. Anxiety, sadness, exhaustion, anger, and shame are the big ones that come up when I’m doing something wrong. I think of it now as my body and mind losing their alignment and fighting with each other. My rational brain knows what I should be doing, but my impulses are dictating my actions and the back and forth continues.
Now to try describing it in a more objective way to hopefully help you make sense of what I’m saying. My goal is to spark your curiosity for your own life. To put your habits under the microscope, to see which ones serve your true nature.
I think it helps to have a habit to focus on. Here’s how to find one to observe:
If you perform the habit around people, but not when you’re alone or with someone you’re close to, who you trust, it’s not authentic. All your habits should be done for you. Your personality should be you. For some reason you think you have to hide parts of yourself from the world, to exaggerate or downplay your habits, and be anyone other than a person doing their best and trying to be better.
Here are a couple examples of habits/personality traits to observe in your life:
Making your bed – if you regularly leave the bed unmade but quickly make it before company comes over, you have two options. You either accept the fact that you don’t make your bed and be ok with the world knowing, or you become someone who makes their bed every day, regardless of a witness.
A performative male doesn’t give a shit about the books he’s reading in public, if he’s even reading them at all. When he is home, he is acting as his true self. If he wants to be accepted for who he is, he becomes a male with no performance. He accepts his habits and removes the ones trying to garner the attention of women.
If you tell people you run for cardio, but find yourself seated on the couch every day after work, which do you think is the habit you should work towards? Probably the one you tell people you do.
The Gap
There is a gap between who you are and who you say you are. The goal is to bridge the gap, find a balance between the two, and always be open to changing to reflect who you are.
If you’re asked about a habit and feel a hesitation to share the truth, this is an expression of the gap.
To close the distance both sides of the spectrum need to release control in their own ways. Your public self needs to learn to stop lying about who they are and what they do. Your alone self needs to know where they are is not where they want to be and start making choices towards a better life.
It’s ok to not be the best version of yourself yet, but it is not ok to tell the world you’re someone you’re not. It is also not right to continue pretending to be someone when who you really are isn’t doing any work to actually become that person. If you continue reinforcing this gap, you will continue feeling the same tension within you.
Each of us is a work in progress. If who you are and who you say you are have not yet found their balance, it’s better to tell yourself and others that you’re working at it than to lie and say you’re someone you’re not.
For a long time, my work personality was utterly different than who I really was. At work, I was friendly, chipper, and patient but the outward expression did not match my internal feelings. I was not happy, I was tired, anxious, and annoyed. The gap was large, but I wanted to genuinely feel how I was presenting myself, to find a balance. My public self didn’t try to force happiness and a chipper personality. If I was tired, I cut myself some slack and settled for presence and calm acknowledgement. If people asked how I was, I slowly became more open to saying “tired” or “overwhelmed” instead of lying and saying “good”. My alone self had to start figuring out why I was feeling these things. There was a lot of healing, a lot of introspection, and a lot of hard nights, but I started feeling much better. The balance was found.
There was a time when I was drinking most nights, felt like shit, but kept doing it. No one knew that. Everyone thought I was so disciplined, but I spent my evenings on the couch, with a beer, on my phone. My public self started being truthful to the people closest to me, I went to therapy for the first time, and I wasn’t as quick to agree when people complimented my discipline. My alone self had to drop this habit. I knew I wanted to be disciplined, healthy diet, frequent exercise, and control, so I started working towards that.
I think a lot of the time, the person we say we are is the person we truly want to be. The habits we tell people we perform are the ones we actually want to do. We want to be perceived as happy, organized, calm, disciplined, this, or that, but sometimes we aren’t quite there yet. This gap will create a lot of pain until the bridge starts being built.
When the balance is found, you may find yourself anywhere along the spectrum of who you are. You won’t always find the habits you told people about are the right ones for you or maybe those habits don’t play a role in your life at all. As you bridge the gap you’ll find a point when you’re doing exactly what you tell people without hesitation and with a sense of internal pride.
Final Thoughts
Imagine being able to fully accept who you are and let the world know, without any hesitation. Think of how it would feel to always be honest about your habits and be proud of them at the same time. What would your life look like if you fully embraced who you were and interacted with the world authentically, with no fear of how other people perceive you.
I’ve found an incredible sense of confidence in myself over the past year and that’s not because I built habits people say build confidence. No, what I did was became the person I told people I was. I embraced my quirks, my emotions, developed habits that work for my life, and started prioritizing myself. I had an idea of who I wanted to be and while my alone self made choices towards becoming that person, my public self started dropping the act and being more open about what my life looked like.
My day to day life has become simple and peaceful. There is rarely any anxiety, shame, or anger and I’m able to give genuine happiness to the world. Learning to bridge the gap between my two selves has allowed me to rediscover my love of reading, writing, and posting videos about topics such as this blog.
All I want is for you to feel the same. To live your life intentionally, always observing, adjusting, learning, and discovering who you are and what habits are right for you. Your process will look different than mine and the words I’ve written may not resonate perfectly with you, but I encourage you to make sense of this process in your own ways.
Find the habits you change depending on who you’re with. Determine the times your personality feels less than authentic. Notice the emotions in your body when you’re being yourself versus hiding the truth.
Be who you say you are. Do the things that are right for you.
May 10, 2026
