Focus on living honorably if you want less anxiety.

Honor doesn’t get much air time these days.

Most see it as something outdated and irrelevant to our modern society.

I believe that’s false and a reason why many people unnecessarily suffer from anxiety.

How does that work?

First, let’s define honor.

Some definitions of honor include:

“High respect, as that shown for special merit…”

“Good name; reputation”

“A mark, token, or gesture of respect or distinction…”

Nothing groundbreaking there, right?

There is if you look at them through a lens aimed at YOURSELF instead of others looking at you.

That means,

Honor isn’t about how others see you; it’s about how you see yourself.

Let’s rewrite those definitions to make it easier to understand.

“Having high respect for oneself, as that shown for special merits…”

“Having a good name and earned reputation with oneself.”

“A mark, token, gesture of respect, or distinction for oneself.”

Another way to say it is an honorable person “knows exactly who they are, what they believe, and what they value because they have an undeniable stack of proof because they live their lives in alignment with those things every…single..day.”

What does this have to do with anxiety?

Do you remember what anxiety is?

It’s an emotional location, and you only get stuck there when your behavior supports living in that state.

Behavior that puts you out of alignment with your values.

Does that mean everyone who struggles with anxiety lives a dishonorable life?

No.

You can’t point to a single cause for anything, let alone something as complex as anxiety.

What you can do is examine your life and ask whether or not you’re living in alignment with your beliefs and values.

If you’re not, you won’t find relief throwing yourself into work, distracting yourself with social media, or self-medicating yourself into a state of numbness.

Those will only make things worse.

You must change your behavior.

Weekly challenge

If you haven’t already downloaded my free guide to uncover your core values, do that HERE and work through it.

After you’ve defined your 2 core values, spend the first half of the week focused on a single value.

Write down every instance you behaved out of alignment with that value.

Repeat the process with the second value during the rest of the week.

At the end of the week, evaluate your behavior and set boundaries to improve it for the next week.