4 Agreements You May Want to Add to Your Life!

Dec 2018

I first heard about the book, The 4 Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz, when I was reading an article about New England Patriots star quarterback Tom Brady. The article mentioned how it is a book based on Toltec wisdom that Brady has read over and over, which of course made me curious. What is it about this spiritual book that has made one of the best football players ever such a big fan? After reading it, I now get all the fuss is about, it is an incredible and short book and one which I will discuss and dissect in the blog post below.

It also made me think of a simple but great piece of advice I received from a family friend while sharing a few beers many years ago, which I will come back to in a little bit.

Ruiz starts the book by describing a concept that he calls…

The Domestication of Humans

As children, we believe pretty much everything that the adults around us tell us, which creates our belief systems and rules that many of us carry throughout our lives – even though we did not choose them. Ruiz calls this surrendering to those beliefs with our agreement as “the domestication of humans”.

As we grow up, when we follow these rules and beliefs we are rewarded, and when we disobey them, we are punished. As Ruiz says: “At an early age, we learn punishment and reward and form an image of perfection in order to try to be good enough to get the reward. We live by an image of how we should be in order to be accepted by everybody else and our fear of being rejected becomes the fear of not being good enough.” ¹

We continue to chase rewards and avoid punishments by conforming to what society expects of us throughout our lives. After many years of repeating this behavior, it eventually turns us into becoming people pleasers who fail to question society’s rules, while being constrained by a fear of rejection or of not being good enough.

What eventually happens according to Ruiz is that we get so domesticated that we start doing it to ourselves by punishing ourselves too harshly for mistakes that we make, and by judging and blaming ourselves and feeling guilty.

How can we escape these patterns? Ruiz has a sage set of 4 Agreements that we can follow:

The 4 Agreements

As he says, “there are four very powerful agreements that will help us break those agreements that come from fear and deplete our energy.”¹

(1) Be Impeccable with Your Word

Ruiz believes that the first agreement is the most important and powerful one as everything you are is manifested through your word – both towards yourself and others.

As for the impeccable part, he defines it as follows: “Now let us see what the word impeccability means. Impeccability means “without sin.” Impeccable comes from the Latin pecatus, which means “sin.” The ‘im’ in impeccable means “without,” so impeccable means “without sin.” Religions talk about sin and sinners, but let’s understand what it really means to sin. A sin is anything that you do which goes against yourself. Everything you feel or believe or say that goes against yourself is a sin. You go against yourself when you judge or blame yourself for anything. Being without sin is exactly the opposite. Being impeccable is not going against yourself. When you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself.”¹

Make it actionable: Stop using your word against yourself by speaking negatively of yourself and by feeling shame and guilt for things you have done. Instead speak well of and love yourself.

Cease being critical or gossiping about others as not only are you hurting them, you are hurting yourself. Instead, use your word with love and gratitude toward others – which will end up coming back to you in the form of love and gratitude from them.

(2) Don’t Take Anything Personally

The second agreement is not to take anything personally. As Ruiz says, “Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they have in their own minds. Their point of view comes from all the programming they received during domestication.”¹ He goes on to say, “Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.”¹

Which if you think about it is true. If they are in a good mood, they will probably treat us well, if they are in a bad mood they may not – yet we were the same person in both situations!

Make it actionable: Don’t take things that other people say personally. Be self-aware enough to understand who you are and what you stand for so that you stop seeking the validation and acceptance of others. Whatever someone says is their problem, not your problem – good or bad. Anything they think is just their opinion which is based on their belief system and the way they see the world and not yours.

(3) Don’t Make Assumptions

The third agreement is not to make assumptions. As Ruiz says, ““We have the tendency to make assumptions about everything. The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are the truth. We could swear they are real. We make assumptions about what others are doing or thinking—we take it personally—then we blame them and react by sending emotional poison with our word. That is why when we make assumptions, we’re asking for problems. We make an assumption, we misunderstand, we take it personally, and we end up creating a whole big drama for nothing.”¹

Make it actionable: Stop assuming what others are doing or thinking! Most of the time we assume the worst and are just getting in our own heads for nothing.

Rather than assuming the worst, instead get clear by asking questions. Have the courage to ask someone what they are doing or thinking instead of assuming the worst and getting all worked up for nothing!

The last agreement is the piece of advice I received from a family friend many years ago, which is to:

(4) Always Do Your Best

The last agreement is one that Ruiz believes ties the first three together and it is simply to do your best. As he says: “Under any circumstance, always do your best, no more and no less. But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next. Everything is alive and changing all the time, so your best will sometimes be high quality, and other times it will not be as good.”¹

Make it actionable: It sounds simple but just always do your best. Your best will be different every day, so be kind to yourself. Only you know if you are really doing your best. If you do your best – misusing your word, taking things personally and making assumptions will happen less frequently. And when they happen you will still feel good about yourself as you know you are doing your best.

I have been given many pieces of advice over the years…

…by many people. But for some reason that is one that I think about a lot and one that has really resonated with me over the years.

And while you may never throw a touchdown pass or marry a supermodel like Tom Brady, you can still score by using the 4 agreements in your life!

Until next time, be impeccable with your word, don’t take anything personally, don’t make assumptions, always do your best and most importantly…PYMFP!!!
–Rick

Use It or Lose It:

To utilize the 4 agreements, simply:

(1) Be impeccable with your word.
(2) Don’t take anything personally.
(3) Don’t make assumptions.
(4) Always do your best.

When to Use It:

Use the 4 agreements every day.

What Do You Think?

Do you use any of the 4 agreements in your life? What do you think of them? Please share in the comments below!

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References

1 Ruiz, Miguel. The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom. San Rafael, Calif: Amber-Allen Pub, 1997. Print.