About only two-three hundred years ago a man’s word was his bond and a handshake was enough to close a deal. Now contracts are valid only if written on paper in the presence of lawyers and it is enough to have a plausible excuse to break a promise.

How often do we tell someone “I’ll call you”, “I really want to watch this movie. I’ll clean up as soon as the commercials are on”, “I will definitely get back in shape before the summer”?

I admit that I am guilty of making such promises and then fulfilling them partially or having to go back on my word and explain why I could not do it.

There are hundreds of reasons why we do not stick to our word: circumstances change, something more urgent comes up, time passes and we forget what we have promised and to whom, or we realize that we made a foolish pledge without thinking it through. The human mind can reach extraordinary levels when it comes to making up self-justifications. But all the excuses in the world still cannot stifle the nagging sensation that we have done something wrong.

If you, just like me, would like to learn how to follow through with your promises 100% of the time, here are 7 Great Tips that will help you to become a man/woman of your word, gain other people’s trust easily, reinforce your self-confidence, eliminate guilty pangs and even reduce conflicts with your family members and your co-workers.

1. Be honest with yourself. However good the intention, before making a promise to anyone (even to yourself), ask yourself if you will be able fulfill it. Do you really have the opportunity, time and desire to stick to your word? Are you sure you are not going to let yourself or another person down? No one is forcing you to give the pledges or make any commitments. Therefore, whenever you have the impulse to make a rushed, far-fetched promise, put a piece of chocolate in your mouth and chew it slowly until the promise-itch passes.

2. Ask yourself if you mean it. An interesting study conducted in Switzerland by Thomas Baumgartner and Urs Fischbacher showed that it is possible to detect whether a person is about to break a promise the second the person voices it. It means that on some level we already know if we will do something or not. They also noticed increased brain activity when participants were giving false promises, which may mean that it is psychologically more comfortable to stick to your promises than to break them.

So my question is why promise something that we do not want to do, knowing that we are not going to do and in addition to all this having to deal with the negative consequences. Isn’t it easier to say “I’m sorry. I wish I could, but I don’t want to” right away?

3. Analyze your motivation behind the promise. Why are you making a particular commitment in the first place? Do you really want to help? Do you feel that you need to say “yes”, because you do not want to disappoint the person who is asking you for a favor? Do you just say “yes”, because you want to end a conversation or because you do not feel like explaining why you do not want to do it? Is there some type of reward/punishment involved? If you are making a promise for the wrong reasons, the chances are that you will not follow through with it.

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Let me tell you a story…

In 1904 Claude Monet exhibited one of his remarkable paintings called “Houses of Parliament”. Monet had tried to capture an image of the Palace of Westminster overlooking the Thames in the early morning. If you look at it, the detail that will catch your eye right away is the color of the fog. It is purple!

When Monet showed his painting to the world, many art critics talked about the interesting vision of the artist or about the original choice of colors that he had used. But the true shock came a few days later when the people of London left their houses early in the morning and to their great surprise saw what they had never noticed before – the sun rays coming through fog had, indeed, made it look purple!

Before Monet’s painting, people looked at the same fog almost every day as they went to work, but most of them only now saw truly it for the first time. Their perception of reality had changed overnight, because of one single person who painted ‘by impression’, not by what he had been taught.

If you think about it, our reality is not something that objectively exists. It is woven from thousands of perceptions. We believe certain things, because at some point in our lives we have accepted them as true. NOT because they ARE a true reflection of reality.

I have a question for you… Have you ever talked to a person and just had a gut feeling that they were lying to you? Or when you were telling yourself a story, you could not get rid of the feeling that you are not being honest with yourself? What did it feel like?

I know that when I hear a lie I feel uneasy, upset, embarrassed or even angry. I believe that we all have a built-in lie detector that stirs up a whole range of negative emotions when we hear something that is not true.

Now let me ask you another question… How did you feel when someone put you down or told you that you could not do something? I am going to take a guess and say that you felt uneasy, upset, embarrassed or angry. Do you know why? Because your intuition was signaling to you that you had been told a LIE.

There are no Universal beauty or ugliness standards. There are no set limits for the amount of wealth and material possessions that a person should have, to be considered “rich” or “poor”. There are no IQ test or intelligence levels that make one person superior to another in the eyes of God.

We, ourselves, create these standards and put labels on ourselves and those around us. And we often ignore the fact that every single judgment that is made is just someone else’s point of view. Not the absolute truth.

When we are born, we do not have an opinion about who we are, what an ideal body should look like and what is possible or impossible for us to achieve. We learn all these opinions later in life and we accept them as truths.

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“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” – Christopher Robin to Winnie-the-Pooh

Many of us realize that the relationship with our spouse or our beloved one requires constant work and effort, but we rarely think like that about friendship. We believe that the bond that we share with our friends will last forever. But the truth is that friendship is not so different from your love relationships. Many of the same rules still apply. You should trust a person. You should share the same interests. You should spend time together to keep your relationship strong. And you should not take your friends for granted!

If you feel that you are slowly growing apart from your friends or would like to make more friends and maintain long-lasting relationships with them, here are 12 friendship musts that will help you to do that:

1. Let go of expectations. In friendship, just as in your relationship with your beloved, you should accept 100% responsibility for making it work. It is never 50/50, otherwise any genuine friendship quickly turns into a business arrangement, e.g. “I will do something for you, but then you will have to do the same for me”. Stop keeping tabs on who has given most in the friendship and do not expect that your efforts or nice gestures will be appreciated or repaid. You can only become true friends with someone you genuinely like, not with someone that you can benefit from.

2. Invite your friends over for a dinner. If your friends live nearby, invite them for dinner every so often. It does not mean that you have to be a gourmet chef. There are plenty of delicious dishes that you can prepare in just an hour.

3. Get together for a weekend. If your friends live far away, invite them to stay at your place for a few days. Plan this weekend in advance. Decide what you want to see or do together. Nothing brings people closer together than happy memories that they can later share.

4. Give your friends personal presents. Gift cards or money are great gifts that do not require a lot of imagination or effort, but they are just as easily forgotten. I honestly do not remember who gave me gift cards for my last birthday, but I will always treasure a painting that my friend drew especially for me. To me it is the most beautiful piece of artwork that I have ever seen, because she put a piece of her heart in it. If you can, make personal gifts for your friends! It really shows them how much they mean to you and where your priorities are.

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I still remember the time when my parent’s friends would come over without calling or informing us in advance about their visit. They would just knock on the door and stay for a cup of coffee, chatting with my parents and discussing the latest news. Today the idea of someone just showing up on your doorstep sounds at the least strange if not ill-mannered. It has become common courtesy to call your friends a few days or, even better, a week in advance and decide on the time of your next meeting.

The advent of Internet and other technological advances like cell phones and instant messengers should have made our communication easier and more efficient. Which they  have. But they have also changed the ways that we interact with others and in some ways challenged interpersonal communication with our friends.

Now with a push of the button we can “accept” new friends on Facebook and just as easily “delete” them off our friends’ list. Do not get me wrong. Facebook is a wonderful social network that helps us find and get in touch with people we have not seen since grade school. It gives us an opportunity to meet new people from just about any country in the world and learn more about their life and their culture. It allows us to get regular updates from our friends that live far away. But it is only a poor substitute for real face-to-face communication.

You can go through life having 500 friends on Facebook, but only a handful of real friends, who will be there for you no matter what. I believe that we can call ourselves fortunate if we have one to three true genuine friends. Not just acquaintances that we occasionally hang out with and meet for lunch.

To me real friendship is truly God’s gift and one of the most gratifying relationships that we can have with other people. But just as any relationship, friendship takes a lot of time and constant effort to cultivate and maintain.

I have been reading a wonderful book “What’s Worth Knowing” by Wendy Lustbader that offers hard-won wisdom that people gained through seventy, eighty, and ninety-plus years of living. An 89-year old John Caughlan when asked “What advice would you give a young person who is trying to live a good life?” answered without hesitation – Good fortune is having good friends:

“Your family is stuck with you. After you get married, your wife is stuck with you, too. But friends are free to come and go. The ones that stay by your side become treasures. They just plain like you. I’m proud of certain things I’ve done in my life, certain accomplishments. But look at my friends! You can’t just go out and acquire them. You make them. Years go by, and you go through hard times together. It takes some doing. I look around and see how lucky I am to have such fine people in my life.”

I truly wish that when I am almost 90 I can say the same. Unfortunately, maintaining friendships is not as easy for me as it  was only 5-10 years ago. Friends get married, have children, move to a different countries and we slowly grow apart.

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If prostitution is considered “the world’s oldest profession”, then gossip is undoubtedly the oldest way of communication.

Since the beginning of time people have been discussing other people’s personal matters and spreading peculiar “news”.

Religions condemn gossip. Psychologists say that gossiping is part of negative behavior programming. Successful people warn that gossip easily destroys trust and reputation. We witness relationships being ruined every day because of gossip. We suffer the consequences of gossip ourselves.

I am sure that you too are familiar with that nauseous feeling of disappointment and disgust, when you discovered that a person that you liked, has talked badly of you behind your back.

No one likes the idea of gossip, and yet statistics show that 66% of all human communication is gossip.

What makes gossip so attractive? And why are most of us (me being no exception) indulging in that “sinful” behavior on a daily basis?

There are five main reasons why people gossip:

1. “Wow! We are really bonding”.

It is really simple. When two people discuss a third person, it makes them feel closer. Almost like they have committed a little crime together and now they have a secret of their own that they do not want anyone else to discover. Gossiping makes us feel “part of a closed club”, by creating a strange feeling of mutual trust and bonding. Although, the question is do you really want to bond THAT way? Because a person who is gossiping WITH you, will most likely gossip ABOUT you the second you leave.

We like people who bring the best out of us, not the ones who drag us down to their level and make us talk negatively about others.

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We all crave being loved, cared for, appreciated and understood. 99% of what we do, think, say, fear, and desire can be, one way or another, linked back to our need for affiliation and approval. And this is not surprising, because without close satisfying relationships our life becomes lonely, boring and meaningless. Relationships, on the other hand, make it exciting, meaningful and fulfilling. But also frustrating. Especially when people refuse to act according to our wishes or expectations.

When it happens, we have two options:

1) Try to change other people and convince them to do the “right thing” ( usually we have an explanation ready of what the right thing is)

2) Change the way we relate to others and learn why we sometimes face difficulties when it comes to creating and sustaining relationships with others.

Here are the 10 Most Important Relationships Laws:

1. THE LAW OF SIMILARITY. Like attracts like. We do not attract people that we want to attract into our life. We attract people who are similar to us, because we resonate with them. There are no accidental encounters. Just after effects of our past thoughts, expectations and actions.

2. THE LAW OF BRICK WALL. Precautions that we take to avoid getting hurt include not letting any emotions get too close to our heart, but this also turns you into a prisoner keeping you safely tucked behind the walls.  “Playing it safe” is a sure way to avoid a broken heart, but it is also a sure way of leaving happiness outside your life.

3. THE LAW OF INACTION. Nothing will change in your life until you take a step to make it happen. Any satisfying long-lasting relationship requires patience and sustained effort.

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There is actually a word for such people – “smart ass (intending a donkey )”. You may say something smart, but it will still only make you an intelligent donkey.

You:

Conversation is a base for any relationship. Through conversation we stay connected with other people, express our thoughts and feelings, learn new information, resolve problems and reach an understanding with each other.

How other people treat you and what they think of you is almost fully dependent on your communication skills. Unfortunately, not everyone feels at ease when talking to other people.

In fact, many people who are convinced that they are have good conversation skills, actually confuse “talkativeness” with “ability to carry on a good conversation”. As we are all aware, quantity of words said per minute does not necessarily improve the quality of conversation.

If sometimes you feel that:

• you can not get the point across

• you have trouble carrying on a conversation

• you find it difficult to come to an understanding with some people

You might want to watch out for these serious conversation mistakes that can turn off people instantly and make them avoid talking to you at all costs:

1. Make it about you. We often think that in order to impress other people we have to share with them how much we know and how many interesting things we have done. But the truth is that 99% of people have exactly the same belief. While you are talking about your life, you do not give them a chance to impress you and share something that is more important to them – their own thoughts and ideas. They want to talk about their stuff, share their stories and opinions, not listen to you talking about yourself.

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There will always be something your spouse will not be able to understand about you, for the sole reason of being biologically and psychologically different from you. Your parents might not understand you, because they have had different life experiences and sometimes they would try to project these on you. Your children will not understand you, because they will look at your decisions from their perspective. The best way to deal with misunderstanding is accept that other people are entitled to have an opinion that is different from yours, and love them anyways.

“It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. For if, by ill luck, people understood each other, they would never agree.” – Charles Baudelaire

It is an amazing feeling to share a deep understanding with someone. It makes communication so much easier and so much more satisfying. You do not have to explain yourself. Do not have to search your brain for the “right words”. Do not have to worry about saying too much. You just know that another person just “gets you”.

We cherish this feeling even more, because it is so rare. In fact, most of us feel truly understood only by our pets (but that is only because they can not talk and ask questions).

How many people in your life really understand you on a deeper level? One maybe two, if you are lucky.

What about the rest of the world? What about your parents? Your friends? Your spouse? Your children? Your co-workers?

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I am sure you want to feel loved, appreciated and understood. But guess what? So does everyone else! People give you advice, actively participate in your life and try to influence your decisions (not because they can not mind their own business ), but because they care about you and are convinced that they know what is better for you. Moreover, they actually expect gratitude (not irritation and anger) in exchange for their participation.

That is why the best way to avoid open arguments with people that you love, is to show them that you respect and value their opinion. You can still do things your way, though.

Social pressure is that uneasy feeling that most of us know too well. It is the feeling you had when you tried to smoke a cigarette for the first time, because you did not want your friends to think you were not ‘cool’. It is that bitter feeling of inferiority that you felt every time you were reminded that you were alone and still not married. It is that wave of protest that built up inside of you, when your boss asked you to stay after work hours to finish a project and you said “Sure. No problem.”, when you really wanted to say, “NO WAY!”.

So what makes social pressure so powerful?

For the most part it is our need to be liked, appreciated, cherished, and understood. We want to feel a part of the group and we know that in order to “fit in”, we must behave in certain “acceptable” ways. Even when our brain tells us that our actions are not logical, our overbearing emotions instruct us to act according to other people’s expectations.

Here are three things you can do to avoid being influenced by other people and claim back control of your life:

1. Know where you stand.

Whenever you start doubting your decisions or actions it can mean only two things:

• We feel that we are doing something wrong.

• We do not have clarity about our beliefs and core values. To be able to withstand other people’s influence and make the right decisions in life, we need to have a strong foundation. What do you believe in? What are your values? The earlier you get this clarity the better.

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