Step Ten

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Read pages 84 and 85.

Introduction

Continuing to take personal inventory takes three forms:

• Spot-check inventory during the day / 'adjusting the steering wheel'
• The Step Eleven nightly review 
• A more extensive examination using any or all of the tools of Step Four / 'periodic servicing'

See Step Eleven for the second of these.

Examine problems using the Step Four tools when Step Ten (see below) and Step Eleven are insufficient to shift the problem. Follow your sponsor's guidance on this.

Instructions

What does the Big Book say?

Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. ... Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all of our activities. "How can I best serve Thee—Thy will (not mine) be done." These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will.

Key points:

• Essentially, this is a practice to develop in real time as we proceed through the day
• Think of it like a monitoring / early-warning system
• The emotions of resentment and fear, and the guilt / self-justification associated with selfishness and dishonesty are like the lights on the dashboard
• Watch out for these
• Do not analyse
• Drop resentment by using the tools learned in Step Four (drop the condemnation, drop the demand, empathise, love)
• Drop fear by using the tools learned in Step Four (trust God, ask God to remove the fear, ask God how to be, ask God what to do)
• Drop dishonesty and selfishness by redirecting mind and actions towards serving God
• Apologise where necessary
• Discuss where necessary

That's it!