1. Honesty is vital to making effective changes and identifying who you really are and what you really want. When you lie about these aspects, you reinforce the idea that you need to pretend to be someone else or that you are not fundamentally good enough for. Worse you undermine virtually every other key principle for self improvement because they are based on the premise that you have identified your authentic self and your goals. This is impossible to achieve if you are denying or deceiving yourself.<br />Many People use self-deception and denial as a way of avoiding having to deal with issues about themselves, circumstances, and people around them or events from the past. What they often do not realise is that this locks them into an ineffectual cycle of self-sabotage and poor self esteem that blocks their ability to move forward in their lives and prevent them living their dreams.<br />Being honest does not mean that you have to confront all of your demons at once, but it does require that you make an honest start by identifying where your issues lie and accepting what they are. By identifying your issues you are more able to see past them to your authentic self. <br />You need to practice honesty at every level of your life, not just with yourself. When you are dishonest, you are effectively saying that you are not worthy enough, that you do not deserve good things and that the only way to get things is to lie or cheat. It really does not matter if it is lying, cheating, stealing, exaggerating what you have done in order to impress people, not correcting too much change accidently given to you, etc… At the most fundamental level these things are not honest and are a negative affirmation to the self.<br />Conclusion:<br />Without the truth of who you are and what you really want, you cannot have clarity in life and you cannot achieve your dreams because you have no true direction.<br />Once you have identified your authentic self, it is easier to determine what you really want and then you can start to move forward, choosing to deal with issues or simply work around them until you feel ready to deal with them.<br />If you are honest you will be considered a far more reliable, balanced person because everyone will know exactly where they are with you.<br />Finally, I’d like to end by saying that not lying is not the same as thrusting your truth on everyone around. As a piece of advice I can tell you: stay honest with yourself, be honest with others and always come from a loving place.<br />Thank you.<br />