How often do you make promises?
You probably make and fulfill lots of them every day, but it's equally likely that you break a number of them every day, too. If you're married, you've likely honored your marriage vows today (I hope!). If you got to work at or before the time you were supposed to, you also honored one of your promises. But what if you forget to call a client back or you show up to a meeting late? Yes, those were promises, too.
The question is, what do you do if you break your promise?
First, a little background. The way most people function, when you honor your promises, that's a good thing, and when you break your promises, that's a bad thing. Inside the context of good and bad (or right and wrong), that's where promises live.
If you think about it long enough, though, you'll begin to see something about promises: you don't want to make them if there's a good (or really good) chance that you might break them.
Promises inside of the context of good/bad or right/wrong don't give you much power. Instead, if you want promises to empower you, have them live inside the context of integrity, where everything's whole and complete just the way it is and just the way it isn't.
Inside the context of integrity, when you break a promise, you simply break a promise. Your integrity is in questions, and all that's left for you to do is restore it. (That could be an easy thing to do or a very difficult one depending on the promise broken!)
So what do you do when you break your promise? First, you acknowledge that you broke the promise. Second, you acknowledge what you said and what really happened (you may have to tell the truth about something you either did or didn't do). Third, you acknowledge the impact that breaking your promise had on those you broke the promise with. And last, you either make another promise, reinstitute the original promise, or declare the promise complete.
How might that look? Say you come to a meeting late. You could say, "I'm acknowledging that I'm late. The meeting was scheduled to begin at 9:00 and it's 9:05. Your time is valuable, and I sincerely apologize. It won't happen again."
Note: you're not making excuses here, even though you'll very much want to! (This will be very tough to do, by the way.)
Now if you're always running late for meetings, your remaking your promise will soon carry little weight; you will lose trust quickly and may not regain it easily. So don't do that!
Next week: Big promises.
Send any questions, comments, stories, or sales problems to
dan@optimumbizdev.com, and I'll personally send you a response!
LAST WEEK'S HOMEWORK: Were you more powerful when making appointments and commitments last week? How did people respond to you?
THIS WEEK'S HOMEWORK: Clean up at least one "mess" that you made when you were out of integrity with a promise you made.
Please take a minute and let me know how you're doing out there. How have these tips been helping you?
