How Being Completely Honest for 7 Days Changed My Life

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I’m Harsh Agrawal

Blog Scientist & a passionate blogger. Love minimalist life & talk about things that matter. Adventure from heart & doer by action.

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Being Honest
While most of us were taught from a very young age that lying is wrong and that we should always tell the truth, the fact is that most of us have found ourselves in situations where we have used some degree of lying for some reason we thought warranted; this causes us to break this “golden rule”.

Perhaps we’ve lied to a teacher to explain our way out of home-work we didn’t complete, or to a parent for playing cricket with friends when we were supposed to be doing something else.

As we start growing up, we realize that the world is not black-and-white and it is hard to get by without occasionally using dishonesty as an excuse to move through the world’s grayness.

I once read the following quote:

“Being nice to someone you don’t like is not being two-faced, it’s a sign that you have become mature.”

I was totally sold on that.

I thought sure –  that’s the reason why people have better connections in life – they’re being nice to others. With time, however, I can say that it is probably the worst quote I have ever allowed myself to believe in.

All too frequently the “excuses” we make in life are actually lies and we rationalize our tendency to use them in order to get through life without much hassle.  What we don’t realize is that our minor, seemingly insignificant lies quickly turn into habitual lying. We continue to rationalize this behavior and employ it in our daily lives. It becomes our way of life!

Eventually, we even start lying to ourselves. We begin to become confused as to what is true and what is a lie.

This process begins innocently. We’re supposed to be up at 8:00AM, but we give ourselves an excuse to take an extra 15 minutes to rest.  Next, we start making excuses for 30 minutes more.

Very soon, we’ve perfected the art of procrastination.

Then we start making excuses for why our work isn’t completed.  Eventually, we find that we are not where (or who!) we want to be in life, and we can’t understand how we arrived at this static place after having wasted so much time and opportunities.

One week of life without lying, and my commitment for the future:

TruthI never used to lie, but I did make lots of excuses for everything… to everyone.

I had previously never realized how small excuses quickly turn into a bad habit and before I knew it, I had turned into somewhat of a liar!

Last week I decided to take a stand. I made a conscious decision to never lie to myself or anyone else.

Going into this plan, I knew that in the process there will be people whose feelings will be hurt, but I figure that a bitter truth is always better than a sweet lie.

In the past week, I was completely honest in everything I did. I don’t know what the true impact was of this one-week experiment, but I have realized that I don’t doubt myself anymore. I don’t question my thoughts or decisions because they’re not filtered or quantified with words like “but”, and, “or”, and so on.

As a result, I feel more confident in myself.

Instead of making excuses for every little thing, I started being honest with everyone around me (including me!). The transition was somewhat difficult, as life transitions always are, but after 24 hours x 7 days, I can tell you that this experiment totally works.

I suggest that you make the effort to try this experiment in your life. Try to be completely honest for a period of at least one week, and see what the impact is on your life.

I will be sharing more about this concept in the coming days, and will let you know how this small life change is working out for me.

11 comments on “How Being Completely Honest for 7 Days Changed My Life

  1. Hey Harsh, I seen that there is no comment below this post so I decided to write my own decision after reading this post. This topic may be little boring for some people but I would prefer to favor these topic and start implementing from now and will definitely see change in my life for atleast 7 days. I appreciate these kinds of writing and also v much happy to start implement in my life.

  2. Hey Harsh,

    A well composed one. Even I faced something like this before. But your post has just moved me again.

    A great one. I just thought that end of this post could have been more better. Felt a bit unconnected at the end. A part from that it was connected.

    One more thing you need to correct this sentence. A bit grammatical error.

    “Last week I decided to took a stand” it should be Last week I decided to take a stand…

    Hope you will correct this one.

    One more thing I am not at all giving up submitting posts on shoutmeloud.com

    Though I submitted one and never got a review from you regarding my post. But I think I have concluded the reason.

    I was not familiar with SEO keywords given in your author dashboard of shotmeoud.com

    Anyways thanks a ton for giving me opportunity to read this one.

    Have a great day.

    Cheers,
    Deep

  3. I really enjoyed reading about being honest. I will apply this. I find that we all tell little white lies and before you know it the story you just told someone was nothing like what really happened. Thanks for sharing

  4. Hi, Harsh you are really an awesome guy!!!! your post had totally shake down my soul. And i understand what is the root of my problems. Thanks a lot.

  5. This is a remarkably perceptive article…It makes you sit up, reflect and take a stock of our own habitual ways…Hence, many thanks for sharing with us.

    However, where I struggle is implementing this golden principle, is at the crucial moment, viz. the moment when lying can easily get you out of a fix whereas telling the plain truth will lead to even greater complication for you… I am being honest here.

    Any tip you can share on the above dilemma of mine?

    Thanks again.

  6. Hi Harsh.
    You are very correct here.
    As this truth is stated from ancient times in our “VEDAS” and “SHASTRAS” and also can be witnessed from “SATYAM-SHIVAM-SUNDARAM”. Should be implemented in life as far as possible and it works.

    Thank you.

  7. Hi Harsh, I do not find this topic boring at all. On the contrary, it is very relevant to everybody, it’s just that not many people have self-awareness or ability to be honest with themselves.

    It’s only lately that I have become fully aware of my own little white lies and their impact on my self-esteem. I get caught in a web of lies and excuses that I use to make things better, to avoid conflict, spare myself or someone else pain.

    I have become manipulator, and I’ve lost sight of who I am. I feel stuck in many areas of my life as my energy is used to manage everything and everybody around me. Uh, now I’ve spoken and I am in the open about my truth. My next step is to employ radical honesty for seven days intensively and “live and let live”.

    Thanks for bringing up this topic and thanks for sharing.

  8. Hey Harsh,
    I am completely SOLD by your passion, your fighting spirit during tough time, your dream chasing capacity and more and valuable your way of connecting people on their thoughts. Also liked the quote you have put “Being nice to someone you don’t like is not being two-faced, it’s a sign that you have become mature”
    Great work and appreciate your efforts toward it. I am getting lot good learnings from your blogs.

  9. Dear harsh,
    Your posts are really like my language, the best thing is you use simple words that I know them. And this one article really gives me insight into why I should also be honest with me about little things in life. I used to give cause for everything that not getting done and this leads to ineffectiveness in many areas. I think I should implement your way to push procrastination and uncertainties out of my life. Thanks for sharing this valuable post.

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