Imagine a co-worker. Or a friend. Or a family member.
And this person promises to do something for you - big or small. The details don’t matter.
If they break that agreement once, we understand. No sweat. We’re human after all.
But the second promise that they fall through on?
And the third?
It doesn’t take long before you simply don’t trust this person to do what they say. And we don’t respect what we can’t trust.
Be impeccable with your word.
That’s the first of the four agreements in Don Miguel Ruiz’s classic book, aptly titled The Four Agreements.
Ruiz’s primary intention with this agreement is external facing - keeping our word when we tell others we will do something.
But what happens when we break promises to ourselves?
It seems innocuous. Uneventful. It’s just us after all. Who are we gonna tell? We haven’t hurt anyone by breaking our agreement, right?
If only.
When we tell ourselves we will do something, we are both parties in the contract. And the agreements we break with ourselves are perhaps the most damaging of all.
Because the deepest form of integrity is internal; doing what we say we will do when no one’s watching.
We know the routine.
We get a jolt of inspiration in the moment, and commit to something, only to let it slip once the inspiration has faded.
The workout. The project. The post. The task.
The guilt and low-grade self-loathing that lingers when we break our word isn’t weakness; it’s our psyche signaling a breach of trust.
Our identities are earned, built out of a thousand micro-promises. Each kept promise says I’m the kind of person who follows through. Each broken one whispers Maybe I’m not.
When we say we will do something, the goal isn’t to force ourselves to do it, but to stop lying to ourselves about what we will or won’t do.
Integrity is alignment between who we say we are and how we show up in reality.
Being impeccable with your word is not about being perfect.
It’s not about never missing a workout or breaking a plan. It’s about speaking honestly; saying what’s actually true instead of what sounds aspirational in the moment.
Because on the other side of honesty and follow through is a quiet confidence.
There’s a calm power that comes from knowing we will do what we say. Even when we’re the only ones watching.
Scratch that.
Especially when we’re the only the only ones watching.
The discipline to commit to things out of conviction, not inspiration.
The discipline to follow through.
And that?
That’s the highest form of self-respect we can gift ourselves.
I don’t like rules, especially when they are self-imposed. That said, I have lived most of my adult life under these two rules-
1) Do the things you say you are going to do.
2) try your best to not be an asshole.
The majority of the times that I’ve broken rule one is to myself, for pretty much every reason you stated here.
This is a great reminder to be true to my own self promises.