Your Word Is Your Bond
Too many people loosely throw out their promises to others, and do not keep them. Whether it is through failing to arrive on time, or not completing something , a lack of conviction in keeping ones word is horrible quality to have. We have all undoubtedly experienced a ‘flaker’, someone who comes up with an array of excuses to get themselves out of a plan during the last minute. You might have planned the event months prior and talked about it in great detail however, something always ‘pops up’ for the flaker.
If the flaker is a repeated offender they begin to diminish in our eyes, we start to lose respect in them as they prove time and time again that they are not worthy of our trust. They throw their word out loosely with no attention of keeping it, these people lack integrity in a major way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0DyaOGY_wQ
Hundreds of years ago a man was only as good as his word, people would take their promises very seriously as failing to would jeopardize ones honor. The word honor is fast becoming archaic, for many it is a relic of the past that bares no significance in the world that we currently live in.
Those who pursue self-actualization take their promises very seriously, as they understand the overt and covert repercussions of failing to do so. Lets dive into these outcomes, so we can really see what’s at stake for those that lack integrity.
Keeping your word to others
As we discussed before we hate it when people can’t keep their word to us, so we must understand that others hate it when we can’t keep ours. If you want to earn peoples respect, and make many friends learn to keep your promises. Keeping your word makes you seem like a class act, it shows the other person that you respect them enough to follow through with what you said. When the flaker doesn’t adhere to the arranged schedule, they are effectively telling us through subliminal means that they do not respect us, as they could not be bothered to keep their promises.
If you are someone who throws their word out loosely you need to become more conscious in your conversations. You need to learn to not agree to schedules or things that you can not follow through with, you will gain more respect telling the person the truth over lying about it. The worst thing that you can do is waste yours and the other persons time, to avoid this situation only agree to things you will stick with. Failing to tell the other person about changes in a plan early on is an act of cowardice, and should be avoided.
Keeping your word to yourself
Not keeping your word to yourself can have worse repercussions than not keeping it to others. When you make a promise to yourself such as that you are going to quit smoking, and you fail to stick with it, you begin to learn not to trust yourself. Your subconscious mind picks up on everything you do, every time you cheat on your diet, every time you procrastinate it remembers.
The subconscious mind will remember that you do not keep your word, and identifies with this habit. This becomes dangerous because you get trapped in a loop of self-fulfilling prophecies, your conscious mind will have its dreams and wishes sabotaged by the subconscious mind through the means of bad habits. Imagine wanting to quit smoking or trying to stop procrastinating, but always falling back into the same old patterns. This is what will happen to you if you begin to take your word lightly.
The opposite is also true, those that take their word seriously have no problem accomplishing things. Setting goals and killing them becomes easy because they identify with being a closer. You learn to trust you faculties, and believe that if you say that you are going to do something, then that thing will get done. Once you start to live this way you will begin to understand what honor is.