The theme for the month of June is Commitment & Integrity.

At COR, we believe that Commitment & Integrity are rooted in the idea of self-responsibility. But what is self-responsibility? COR defines it as, “We are responsible for ourselves. It is essential for true transformation to own our actions and feelings.” Without self-responsibility, there is no ability to be in commitment and integrity, because in order to stay in commitment and integrity, we need to be willing to call ourselves out when we falter.

For example, one of my responsibilities as the General Manager for COR is to manage and produce our weekly newsletter. At a recent COR Team meeting, we were reviewing the upcoming newsletters and discussing who’s doing what. I volunteered to write the Introduction to the Theme newsletter for the first week of June. It’s an important newsletter, because it creates the theme and context for the subsequent newsletters for the month.

My volunteering to write the first newsletter of the month was a major stretch and since I’ve never done it before, I felt scared and nervous about making that kind of commitment. Especially because, here’s the thing: I am someone who has a really hard time writing — it’s just not my jam, wheelhouse, or happy place. I get tortured about writing, and I tend to suffer throughout the entire process. But, I took the stretch, and I made the commitment to do it for the team.

You may be thinking to yourself, “Hey…wait a minute, the first week of June was LAST week.” And perhaps you might have even noticed that there wasn’t a newsletter last week… My fear of writing this newsletter was so intense that my survivor-self kicked into gear, and here’s what happened:

1) I got scared to ask for help from Britta & Lee because they were at our Leadership Training in Virginia
2) I decided to be “nice” because I didn’t want to bother them or disturb them with my “silly” questions
3) I focused on other tasks/projects and let myself “forget” about this deadline until two days after it was supposed to be sent out
4) I then made myself wrong and said all kinds of mean things to myself once I figured out what I did

Does any of this sound familiar to you? You may have your own version of this scenario around making a promise to do something that you didn’t manage to get done on time, or at all. 

I knew what had happened. I had committed to something and then didn’t end up fulfilling on that commitment. I was out of integrity, but I realized, it didn’t have to be the end of the world. Britta & Lee weren’t going to think I was a terrible person because of this one instance. In some ways, this breakdown could even be viewed as a gift. I could take responsibility, and get back in alignment with my commitments. I had the opportunity to restore my integrity and make a new promise to write this newsletter.

So I called up Britta and Lee, and I shared with them how scared I was to ask for help, that I didn’t want to bother them, and yet had dropped the ball. I didn’t get the newsletter done on time. I was open and shared how I was suffering about the situation.

I took responsibility. And guess what? I didn’t die! The ground didn’t open up and swallow me. Britta and Lee were understanding and supportive. They honored my experience and appreciated my honesty and willingness to be self responsible.

Of course, the irony of the situation was that this happened when the month’s theme is commitment and integrity! Before we’d even started talking about the theme, I got to fully dive into it for myself and really see the importance of these values.

I think it’s safe to say that we all struggle with being committed and being in integrity. It’s part of our human experience to learn, fail, and transform. And it’s a choice, as always. But when we make the choice to commit and stay in integrity, and combine these values with the self-responsibility required to call ourselves out when we stumble, we find our power, and unlimited potential for growth.

It’s very humbling for me to share this story with you. I don’t want to look bad, and I don’t want you to think I’m a failure. But this is the opportunity of commitment and integrity. I choose to be committed to COR and the work that we do. I choose to be someone who is reliable for honoring my word. And, I acknowledge when I make mistakes, and take responsibility—It’s okay to make a mistake, and then learn from the lesson. This actually gives me power!

Have you recently struggled with keeping your commitments and being in integrity? We would love to hear your stories on FB!

Much love and gratitude,

Freida