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The Four Agreements and the Seven Habits

• Posted by Theresa on October 31st, 2006 filed in Book Review, Goals, Self-Help

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)

“Everything we do is based on agreements we have made - agreements with ourselves, with other people, with God, with life. But the most important agreements are the ones we make with ourselves. In these agreements we tell ourselves who we are, how to behave, what is possible, what is impossible.”

From the website of Miguel Ruiz

I tried to read this book years ago and for some reason I couldn’t really get into it. But I ran into it again recently and saw this condensed version of the Four Agreements and I liked what they said.

The Four Agreements

1. Be Impeccable with Your Word Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

It reminded me of something I read at work the other day - the teeny version of 7 Habits for Highly Effective Teens. There was a section in there on living the habits with these points:

Keep promises to yourself
Do small acts of kindness
Be gentle with yourself
Be honest
Renew yourself
Tap into your talents

The one that really stuck out for me the other day when I was reading that was “Keep promises to yourself.” Have integrity with yourself. Don’t make goals that you know you will not work on to achieve. Don’t say you will do something knowing full well you won’t. You owe it to yourself to only make promises to yourself that you have the intention of keeping. Start small. Make promises you can keep. Allow yourself to be proud of yourself instead of setting yourself up for failure and adding another blow to your self-esteem.

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