Today someone asked me,
This was my answer:
A spoken promise is this wonderful obligation you hang within your own reach, begging to be made good on.
A spoken promise is the golden opportunity you give to yourself.
When you make a promise you are putting your good word at stake, and with the actions you then take to deliver on your word you have created your self-worth and your value to others.
You have built upon your reputation, coming full circle to growing the credibility of your word when you next speak.
You have accepted the responsibility to deliver, you have been held accountable, and you are transformed, the engineer of your own growth and self-development.
Not only do you grow, you become trustworthy.
Tags:
Trust.
Reputation.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I would also add: Be honest with them. If you can tell someone the truth–even when it might be hard for them to hear and even when other people are telling them differently–you’ll build a trusting relationship. Be honest and keep your promises. You’ll have friends for life.
Good addition Rick, I absolutely agree. You are perceived as rare, and extremely valued by others who feel you are always honest and truthful with them, yet kind.
I was just reading Tim Milburn’s blog, and he also posted this relationship gem: click into studentl.inc (student leaders incorporated) and read, “Do You Like People?”
here’s the link:
http://studentlinc.blogspot.com/2005/06/do-you-like-people.html
Also, you could add, never promise to do anything for someone if you’re not sure you can do this. Promising is easy, but to keep your promises can be harder. This is a Danish proverb, but when I tried to translate it directly into English, I discovered some differences. In English, verb and pronoun is the same, line in this sentence above. Not so in Danish!. The verb is called which also means in English, while the pronoun means or . While is in Danish, which as a verb, menas
Now, I hope you trust me and my home spun linguistic exercises , as to me this really generates some deep reflections, but perhaps not so for anyone not familiar with my mother tongue, the Danish language…
I’ll stop here, I promise! (at least for tonight :-)
OOh, ten minutes ago i promised… well, I found out tehre was an error in my posting so that it really did not make any sense to anyone!
never write words in tags, in this kind of template :-)
One more time: In English, verb and pronoun is the same, “a promise” and “to promise” – like in this sentence above. Not so in Danish!. The verb is called “at love” which also means”to praise” in English, while the pronoun “a promise” is called “et loefte”; as a verb “at loefte” means “to lift”.
Please be patient with me, I PROMISE to be more careful next time I post a note :-)
Sus
Ps Ps
And how do Danes say, “I love you” ? That’s easy! “Jeg elsker dig”. But “Burning love”? That’s different – we call that “Braendende kaerlighed!” Do you get the picture now?