During my podcast today, I shared recapped what Top Line Behaviors are in order to fully explain what Bottom Line Behaviors are and how they are completely independent of anyone else other than you…or the person trying to set them.
Bottom and Top lines are like guard rails on a bridge, left hand guardrail being bottom line, right hand guardrail being the topline. We want to drive in the right-hand lane. Caution lines are like the yellow middle line. Goal lines are finish lines to where we are headed and are tangible, accomplishments. I gave a few examples of my bottom lines. 6/6/19, I decided that it might be a good idea to take a break from social media. I established no social media as one of my bottom lines.
This was a line from my journal, “Today was Day 1 of no social media. I deleted LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Facebook Messenger apps from my phone and ipad…. here we go”. Later, a few months down the road, I adjusted this bottom line and said that my bottom line was “No Social Media Stalking.” I needed to look up some people and post for my job on our company LinkedIn page, so it was necessary to be involved in the apps. I great spiritually and didn’t spin after a few months of my reboot and allowed myself access, just set proper boundaries.
Also from my journal, “6/4/19 today I learned after sharing with my friend that I need to create a list of Bottom Lines and Top Lines for how I am to live my live daily. With these parameters, I will have a clear road map to debt free, lust free, sober living. I learned, thanks to JB, that he heard that the bottom lines are directly opposite to the top lines.
Bottom Line examples might include the following:
- No sex outside of marriage
- No porn of any kind
- No secrets
- No scanning
- No weed or adderall
- No alcohol
- No social media stalking
- No obvious sugars, specifically cakes, candy or ice cream…and pizza
- No attaboys from my parents or brother
- No intriguing
The wonderful thing about bottom lines is that they are custom to you and your personal situation. What do you want to stop, JUST FOR TODAY. Consider creating it as a “bottom line behavior” so that you are real clear what is allowed and what is not. I had a friend in the program who said to draw a square and write inside of the square what is off limits with you and outside the square what is allowed. That way you can get a visual and tell yourself, “if I do this activity that is inside this square, that means I have broken my bottom lines and I need to restart that day count of how many days I have been off or abstaining from that bottom line. For example, we can keep very clear day counters for each and every one of our bottom lines to assist us mentally in staying away from these behaviors…one day at a time.
