Be Impeccable With Your Word
Be Impeccable with your word is one of the principles of Don Miguel Ruiz in his series of books -the first one being “The Four Agreements” (amazon.com link). When I first started studying this principle I missed the most important point and that is the agreements we make with ourselves. When we make statements or even have implied agreements (unspoken) agreements with ourselves and we don’t keep them, we hurt ourselves each time we break them with ourself. What does it say that you don’t do what you are going to do what you say you are going to do?
While part of it has to do with the agreement or statement you make, the other part has to do with how much you value yourself.
Learning to set reasonable and obtainable goals is the first step. How many new clients do you want for this week? 20? is that reasonable? What number would be reasonable? 1 or 2 is reasonable. It also depends on how much marketing you are doing for yourself.
So if you set a reasonable goal of getting 1-2 clients a week, what gets in the way of getting yourself out there and making it happen is usually a belief you have about yourself. When you value yourself, you will keep your agreement with yourself to get new clients.
The biggest and most obvious agreement is how we deal with time…. Are you on time for your appointments with clients? Do you call clients back within an hour or two?
What agreements do you have with yourself that are unreasonable and unreachable?
What does it mean when you are unable to do what you say you intend to do…like build a practice?
April 27th, 2006 at 4:28 am
I’m not quite sure I get this. I do understand the part about how things get in the way of getting out there to sell myself, but I’d like more clarity on the part you mention about a belief one has about “self-value” getting in the way. Could you give a few examples? Thanks.
April 27th, 2006 at 7:45 am
Your beliefs are what are your driving force. Most of the beliefs we have are unconscious beliefs that were created as a result of our upbringing- parents and schools, friends and families often taught us what to believe. The thing is that most of our unconscious beliefs are untrue.
We are filled with unconscious beliefs such as “we are not good enough”, “we are not smart enough”, “we will be rejected if we ask for what we want”. These beliefs come out in our practices. When it comes time to marketing your practice -really putting yourself out there in the public eye - what thoughts come up in your head about marketing…
I don’t want to be a pushy sales person.
I don’t want to impinge on someones time.
I don’t want to ask people to rebook their appointments, because I don’t want to appear pushy.
I want people to come to my practice just because I have opened the office and I am really a great massage therapist.
I sent one flyer out and no one responded. I won’t do that again. It didn’t work. (A marketing effort doesn’t work after you did it dozens of times and no one even looked at it).
I don’t want to ask the doctor down the hall for referrals because it would be too much to ask.
All of these thoughts are based on the “false” beliefs that were created at an early age. It is becoming aware of ‘who is driving the car’ so that you can become more aware of when the false beliefs are creating the fear of marketing or promoting yourself. It isn’t that the feeling of fear isn’t real. It is. It is when the fear is having you rather then you feeling the fear that it becomes a problem. It keeps you stuck…
I don’t know if that helps…I think I’ll have to write an article on it this weekend.
see also: blogÂ