1. Be Impeccable with your word:
If you say you will do something, then do it. This will make you dependable and show that you are a competent person who puts their best foot forward and means what they say. In addition, it helps build your reputation as a professional who delivers on what they promise, which is invaluable to any team.
2. Don’t take anything personally.
This is how you avoid drama and misunderstandings. Anything someone says negatively about another person is almost always a projection of their inadequacies. Of course, people usually don’t mean to say anything to attack anyone on a personal level, but when we take things personally, it can be interpreted as such.
Approach these situations looking to understand why someone would think that way, so you can begin to learn if there is any truth in what they say. When we are first starting, we can take a lot of the advice of people above us as punching down to prove their superiority. Unfortunately, when we feel this way, it’s because we are taking things personally when most likely, they want to help us avoid the same mistakes they made when they were starting.
3. Don’t Make Assumptions
It goes hand in hand with not taking anything personally, but more importantly, when you don’t assume things when first starting, you will ask better questions to learn things the right way. Also, avoiding assumptions saves you from making needless mistakes for which you would otherwise seek outside advice.
We’ve all been there. We assume one thing, then google it and realize we were dead wrong. So yeah, I should’ve checked to make sure Target was open before I drove 30 minutes, only to see that it’s closed at 11 pm (I assumed it was open until midnight, don’t judge me!).
4. Always Do Your Best
This one seems easy, but it’s easy to lie to ourselves and say we did our best when we know we could do better. Some advice I heard was to treat yourself like raising a little kid. When you raise children, you want what’s best for them and to do their best for their well-being. So why don’t we hold ourselves to the same standards? Knowing I have done my best and thought of ways to prevent failure at a task frees me to feel confident in my day-to-day life because if something goes wrong, I know I did my best and can only learn from it!
Conclusion
It’s not easy to keep these in the front of your mind. That’s why I printed out this poster (scroll to the bottom and submit an email to have it emailed to you). I love this visual reminder, and it forces me to keep these tenets in mind throughout the day.
Let me know what you think is the most valuable of the four agreements in the comments below.
