When we promise something and don't deliver, we fall from the height of our own commitments. Why it's better to promise rarely and always keep your word.
The height of a promise is the height of the fall.
When we promise other people something but don’t follow through on what we took on, we fall from the height of those commitments.
It’s a very fast way to damage your reputation and end up isolated from good people.
If we’ve promised someone something — even when the favour is needed by them and not by us — then the moment we said “yes, I’ll do it” we took on that commitment, and the ball is now in our court.
If the person who needs that favour has to keep reminding us about our own promise, we’re planting a reputational time bomb under ourselves.
It’s better to be modest with promises and make them very rarely, but once you’ve given your word, keep it and don’t make people chase you.
When we calmly deliver on what we’ve taken on, our authority and reputation only benefit, and people understand that we’re reliable and self-motivated.
And given that 99% of the opportunities in our life walk around on two legs, being firm in our word is what moves us up through social levels faster.
Does it irritate you when people promise something and then forget about it, or when you have to remind them over and over?
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