Who’s ready to hear some ancient wisdom? These are words you’ll want to live by. Life-changing? For sure!
The Four Agreements is a short book that’s packed with pure wisdom.
The story goes that thousands of years ago, the Toltec were known in southern Mexico as women and men of knowledge. They were this secret society made up of scientists and artists who wanted to conserve the spiritual knowledge of ancient times. The wisdom they held stayed in secrecy for hundreds of years. That is, until Don Miguel Ruiz entered the scene. Born and raised in rural Mexico, he was destined to carry forth the Toltec knowledge but instead chose medical school to become a surgeon. Then, he had a near-death experience that changed his life.
Late one night in the early 1970s, he fell asleep at the wheel of his car and he crashed into a concrete wall. Stunned by this accident, he decided to devote himself to sharing the wisdom of the ancient Toltec. So let’s get into it!
There are four agreements that act like action steps we could and should all live by.
First up is Be Impeccable With Your Word. It is the most important and the most difficult one for most of us. To the Toltecs, the word is pure magic but misuse it and it becomes black magic. One word can destroy millions of lives. Remember Hitler and how he led Germany to a World War just by his persuasive words? This is the power words have that come out of our mouths.
Our parents and siblings can strongly influence us. When my mom would discouragingly say, “Use your brain!” that sentence would haunt me, making me believe that I wasn’t smart and never would be.
Our word is the most powerful gift we have as humans. To break a spell, like I am stupid, you have to make a new agreeement with yourself based on truth.
Being impeccable with your word also applies to how you talk to yourself. I’ll say stuff to myself like, “Oh, I am fat” or “I am old.” And these words act against our own selves.
To break all the agreements that make you suffer, practice self-love. Say to yourself how wonderful you are. Talk to yourself in positive ways like say, “I am healthy” and “I am smart” and believe that about yourself.
When it comes to my kids, I’m very careful with follow-through. Ready for a “Fail Mom Story?” We’ll call it the “Fail Mom Birthday Fiasco. So my son Logan was turning 8 in January but right before his birthday, my other son Parker got sick with Covid. I sat Logan down and had a serious talk with him. I told him sorry but we won’t be able to be all together for his birthday. His brother would have to be in quarantine so we would have to postpone any type of celebration.
So what did Logan do? He busted out crying, huge tears dripped from his poor, distraught face. We’re talking the ugly cry where he can’t even talk. So then I try to back pedal and so I promised him 15 yes days and 10 toys from Amazon. Yes days are when you say yes to whatever they want to do that day. I promised, 15! After I promised him all of that, I couldn’t go back. I wish I had been less emotional and more rational when I promised all that but I couldn’t just let Logan feel his feelings.
Moving on to the second agreement. It’s Don’t Take Anything Personally. Being once told I was not good enough for my husband, those words pierced my heart and put me in a bad place. If only I hadn’t taken it so personally, I would have saved myself over 10 years of therapy.
As stated in the book, “Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.” The book goes so far as saying when or if someone says, “Hey, you look fat”, they are trying to poison you. Interestingly, you’re not supposed to take the negative or the positive statements personally. Even if someone says, “You’re the best!,” don’t take that to heart. Either way, you know who you are and you don’t have the need to be accepted. Love yourself, be content with who you are and know that, no matter what people say, you are a solid person. If you never take things personally, you’ll never be hurt by what people say.
Now we move on to agreement number three which is, Don’t Make Assumptions. The problem with this one is that we take assumptions and make them our truths. Instead of asking for clarification, we make assumptions. We should be courageous enough to ask follow up questions instead. This happens in marriages a lot. When my husband Sam is in a bad mood, I sometimes think I’ve done something wrong when really he’s just overwhelmed with work.
We assume people see life the same way as we do, that they think and feel the same way as us.
Personally, I assume that people think my YouTube videos suck so I have this unbelievable fear about sharing them. I assume they’re saying “Who does she think she is?” Yeah, I suffer from major imposter syndrome and I’m extremely hard on myself.
The way to stop making assumptions is to ask questions. I can ask my friends for constructive criticism.
Finally, we get to the fourth agreement which is Always Do Your Best. This is one of those basic ideas we all want to teach our children. I wish someone had told me this when I was born! Some days your best is going to be high quality while other days it isn’t. Be your best every day while taking into account how your mood may change from one moment to another.
In order to stop judging yourself so harshly, just do your best. Always, period, exclamation mark. If you do your best, you’ll live life intensely. You’ll be insanely productive and good to yourself while will make you a better person to your family, friends and community.
As my coach says, “Take action.” Because “When you always do your best, you take action.” The book advises to take action without expecting a reward, do it because you are having fun.
When you do your best, you live life like there are no regrets. The trick is to do your best because you WANT to not because you HAVE to do it. Do your best so you can take pride in yourself.
When Parker missed school for 10 days because of Covid, he had a mountain of catch-up homework to do. He wanted to skate by, doing the minimum possible. I had to have a hard talk with him on how we should always do our best, we should take pride in our work.
It reminds me of the Steve Jobs story about the fence. His dad once told him this as they were building a fence, ‘You gotta make the back of the fence — that nobody will see — just as good looking as the front of the fence. Even though nobody will see it, you will know, and that will show that you’re dedicated to making something perfect.” We all know how beautiful Apple products are, Steve Jobs took those words to heart.
One last part I like about this book is the few paragraphs Ruiz dedicates to blaming parents. He writes, “You don’t need to blame your parents for teaching you to be like them. What else could they teach you but what they know? They had no control over the programming they received, so they couldn’t have behaved any differently.” It’s time to stop blaming our parents for what they did to us and we need to let all that bad shit go.
Overall, I thought this short book packed a powerful punch. It’s great for those who like action steps, words they can live by.
