Never Compromise Yourself

byMichaelKiff

80 followers

9 years ago

Have you every compromised yourself and your beliefs in the spirit of going “with the flow” or to get along with others either at work, home or relationships?

We’re all familiar with compromises. The world seems to demand compromises in so many areas that we may be tempted to believe that we can get away with compromising on who we are. That is a shortsighted view and one that will likely land us in trouble. For one thing, we should have a high level of integrity. While this may seem alien many of us in this politically correct world, but we must remember that integrity of self is one of the critical components of knowing who we are and not compromising that.

I was contemplating this very subject over the week-end and I thought to myself how we have a tendency to bargain with God, our spouse, fellow workers and even our boss to get what we want – now! The problem with this is obvious, sooner or later our hearts are not in sync with our thoughts and eventually we become miserable. Why? We have compromised ourselves to the point that we may have gotten what we wanted but the price we paid is steep. We were not true to ourselves.

“Don’t compromise yourself. It’s all you’ve got.” – Janis Joplin said during her lifetime. Although she did not live a very healthy life and her addictive behavior took he life way too soon, her quote lives true to this very day.

In careers you should never compromise:

• Your standards of integrity
• Your self-respect
• Yourself for money
• Your health and well-being
• Your legacy (what you will be able to say about yourself looking back on your career)

In your life and in general there are about 7 areas that I believe we should never compromise on:

• Your friendships
• Your dreams
• Your relationship with your family
• Your career goals
• The way you feel about yourself
• The treatment from others that you are willing to tolerate
• Your core beliefs and values

For those of you that never learned to love yourselves and for those of you who often feel inadequate, insecure, underserving, or unworthy of the career you want, or the love you deserve, you will continually abandon and betray yourselves for the acceptance and love of others to the point where we repeatedly find ourselves in situations and relationships where we feel used, unappreciated, valueless or worthless to those around us as well as to ourselves. For these reasons and more, I say never compromise yourself to the point that you do so while sacrificing yourself.