There are some people who advocate that whatever the circumstances you should always tell the truth. I’m not one of them. The fact is the majority of us tell lies at some point during the day. Someone asks our opinion of something and we don’t give them a truthful answers. There are different reasons for doing this, including: not wanting to hurt some one’s feelings, not wanting to cause offence, not wanting to annoy someone, not wanting to get into trouble, not wanting to get someone else into trouble.... There are lots of occasions when if somebody as us “is honesty the best policy”, we’d probably say “in certain circumstance”.

What being honest means varies to all of us depending on our own value and belief system and the context in which we find ourselves. However, when people have asked me as a coach “Is honesty the best policy” I have always been unequivocal in my response. Being honest with yourself is the only way to motivate yourself and reach any of the goals in life that you want. Time and time again people sabotage themselves by not being honest.

I was thinking about this again recently when I was watching an edition of USA Biggest Loser – Couples, a weight loss reality TV programme where contestants live on a ‘farm’ and compete to lose the most weight and win 250,000 dollars. Living in the UK, I didn’t pick up on this programme until very recently and I haven’t seen many of the episodes, but I am fascinated by the training methods that are used by the trainers alongside the physical activities for the competitors. Their methods are a mixture of encouragement, tough love and a no nonsense/no excuse approach. I have do no doubt if the trainers were asked ‘ is honesty is the best policy’ for the contestants. they would say that it was absolutely key to their success.

Nearing the end of the competition, when only four contestants were left, they were all sent home for a month to continue their exercise and weight loss programme in their normal environment. They knew that when they returned to the training camp or farm as they call it they would have to run a marathon, which is a pretty daunting task for anyone. All four contestants completed the task and won 10,000 dollars for their chosen charity – a great achievement. The following day they had to face the final weigh-in to decide who was to go forward into the final. Two of the competitors had lost well over a stone and one just under the stone. The fourth competitor who had ran the marathon in a superb time of 4hrs 2 minutes had put on 2lbs. Awful for him.

I almost held my breath. How would he explain the 2lb weight gain? Would he be honest about it? No he wasn’t. He made excuses about how he had been training to run the marathon. As usual the two no-nonsense trainers were having none of it and one actually told him he just wasn’t being honest with himself. He had gained weight because he had eaten too much, it was as simple as that.

I felt for him as I watched this, because he did something which so many of us do. He had sabotaged himself by eating too much and then he wasn’t able to be honest about it. From his expression, it didn’t just seem as if he was trying to be upbeat because he was on television and kid the audience, or the trainers or his fellow competitors, you could see him kidding himself. He hadn't been able to stay motivated and on target. Ultimately, it dawned on him how foolish he’d been and that was painful to watch. I wonder what he would say now if someone asked him ‘Is honesty the best policy?’

If you want to stay motivated or make big changes in your life, there is only one way of doing that successfully and that is by being honest with yourself. Don’t ever sabotage your own success by kidding yourself. You’ll regret it if you do. And if someone asks you ‘Is honesty the best policy?’, whatever you answer to them is up to you. For yourself the answer should be an unequivocal Yes!