The Four Agreements : Crush It Mondays

This is an episode of Crush It Mondays.  Each week, I’ll bring to you an inspiring message, habit, or contemplation to get your week off to a powerful start.  In this week’s episode, I want to talk about a book I love by Don Miguel Ruiz called The Four Agreements.  First off, I want to thank our podcast sponsor, Osea Malibu.

Don Miguel tells us about ancient Toltec wisdom.

1. Be Impeccable with Your Word

Do the things you say you are going to do and be thoughtful about how talk to and about people.  Your word and your integrity are the most valuable thing you have to offer.  This agreement also includes avoiding gossiping, lying, and making false promises.  Our words are incredibly powerful- not only the words we say to others, but the words we say to ourselves.  Saying bad things about people actually reflects poorly on you.  Your judgment of others is really a mirror of your own self-criticism. It feels gross to lie, gossip, or say negative things.  Negativity also spreads like wildfire, so how you talk can really influence people and how they feel.

2. Don't Take Anything Personally

Most people's actions are about them, not about you.  If someone snaps at you, it's easy to take it personally but it's really more likely that it's a reflection of something going on with them, not you.

3. Don't Make Assumptions

This is the hardest one for me.  Remember the Crush It Monday I recorded about the ABCs- adversity, belief, consequence?  Assumptions are deeply tied to the belief of something that happened. Assumptions can cause a huge amount of unnecessary stress.  Assumptions and snap judgments about people can be really wrong.  As human beings, it's natural for us to look around and constantly be analyzing everything about our world.  There are times where you need to make some kind of assumption to make a decision, but there are other times where it's only causing you stress and harm. The reality is we don't know what people are thinking, we don't always know what tone was meant by an email or a text... Really trying to understand where someone else is coming from, even if you don't agree with them can help you avoid jumping to conclusions. There are times where intuition reigns supreme about assumptions. It's important not to ignore really obvious signs of something going wrong, but being aware of when you are making assumptions and questioning the validity of them is really helpful!

4. Always Do Your Best

This was drilled into me from a young age and I sincerely appreciated that from my parents.  Doing your best helps you feel proud of whatever you are doing, regardless of the outcome.  Your best is all you have on that day.  Your best can vary from day to day as well (think of racing when your best one day maybe just barely finishing and your best another day is getting on the podium!). If you do your best, you'll rarely have any regrets.  Don Miguel also says, "When you do your best you learn to accept yourself."  I don't know about you, but self-acceptance is something I struggle with the most.

"You can choose to believe in anything, and that includes believing in yourself."

- Four Agreements

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