• Clumsy or vague commitments, e.g. “I should exercise more.” With such a vague agreement as this I can feel discouraged that I am not keeping it literally every minute of the day not spent exercising. But, I have not made a clear agreement! A clearly made agreement has a time, a date, and an observable, specific action (or removal of action as in not eating the cake!). In my vague agreement there is no time or date and I don’t even know what exercise looks like. Now if I say I am going to ride my bike at least five miles starting at 9 AM tomorrow, I have made a clear agreement and it has a better chance of happening. Also, I am not going to spend the rest of today beating myself up for not exercising because I have a clear plan of when it is going to happen next.

• Saying “yes” to everything. When we over commit, we can end up feeling like a big procrastinator as we do everything frantically at the last minute in crisis mode. Also, sometimes by saying “yes” to everything, we can have two agreements push against each other and have to break or change agreements a lot. Life feels saner if we make agreements based on realistic expectations of what we can do. Making clear agreements is not about setting up unreasonable expectations for yourself. It is more about being in integrity with your reality and building/maintaining self trust and inspiring trust in others. When we feel we’ve broken an agreement, we break self trust. We can carry this bag of “failed agreements” around with us and feel like we just add to it every day. Forgive yourself! Probably most of these agreements haven’t even counted as real agreements!

 There are three things you can do with an agreement, keep it, change it (where the other person really has the option to say, “No, I want to keep with our original plan.”, or break it. If you break an agreement there is no need for upset or shame for there is a way to clean it up and call it good.

Cleaning up broken agreements. This is how you can get to a clean slate and keep it clean instead of digging an ever deeper pit of broken self-trust.

   1. Acknowledge the facts. e.g. “I said I was going to meet you for lunch and I flaked.”

   2. Sincerely apologize, e.g. “I am really sorry I spaced it.”

   3. Make amends, e.g. “Let’s reschedule and let me buy to make it up.”

   4. Recommit to the relationship, e.g. “Your friendship is important and I really do intend on respecting your time. I am committed to doing better in the future.”

Please follow the same protocol for agreements you break with your self! Including making amends. A broken agreement does not have to be an occasion for self-abuse. It can be treated as information. Why did the agreement fail? Perhaps it was too vague? Perhaps it was too much? Or perhaps we simply had a bad day? Use the information to craft better and better agreements.

 My “Momentum Masters” business coaching groups are designed to maximize self-accountability and, thereby, increase your power to manifest fabulous results with your business and life.

What do you want? It is difficult to know what you really want when your focus is mainly on trying to prevent what you don’t want to happen while making sure you look good. Often, the sense of clarity around what we want emerges after we choose to commit to a goal. Commitment precedes clarity, not the other way around. When you really commit you’ll have an experience of freedom to move forward and a flow of inspiration and ideas will follow. Your creative mind will come alive with possibilities and potential sources of help. The best way to discover what you want is to ask yourself the question, “what is missing”. When I have a new client in front of me I always start by asking, “What are three things you want more of in your life?” and “What are three things you want less of in your life?” From this conversation, more often than not, pretty clear dreams, goals, and desires appear that may have been hiding behind fear or previous failure or simply that never make it to the front burner. (Of course, to me, failure is just proof that you have been moving forward!)

What are you going to do about it? Make up a plan to achieve your goal so that it can show up. It’s not what you plan but that you plan. You’ll have to guess at your plan, making sure to add in those tasks that you feel should be done as they occur to you. No one has ever been able to figure out what to do to produce exact results. It is good to allow for flexibility in your plan as new results provide information. The power here really is that you engage in the process of making a plan. The tasks you choose in your plan are to empower an experience of productivity, not to give you a sense of having figured it all out. Many clients that come through my door haven’t achieved what they say they want simply because they are attached to having to know exactly how their results are going to show up. I find that allowing results to show up is much more powerful than forcing results to show up. In reality, it is you who must keep showing up!

Keeping your agreements. Now that you know what you want and have made up a plan of action, making and keeping clear agreements about your plan becomes the power behind manifesting the results you want. Having results without struggle or effort requires that you keep your agreements around your plan.
Occasionally we break agreements. Tell the truth about the broken agreement and forgive yourself quickly and with acceptance that you are doing it! You are on your path, not waiting anymore. Occasionally we need to change an agreement. It’s OK to do that but take note if you change it more than twice. Keeping your agreements impeccably will create an experience of momentum where “everything is just working”.

There is a common pitfall that befalls many of us regarding agreements. We find that we can keep agreements with everyone else but ourselves. We may ask ourselves “why?” and spend many vexing hours in contemplation. I am here to tell you it is that it is. The way around the self-agreement failure pitfall is to enroll others in your plans, tell them your agreements, and share your successes, too! My “Momentum Masters” business coaching groups are designed to maximize self-accountability and, thereby, increase your power to manifest fabulous results with your business and life. I want you to feel great about taking those goals, dreams, and intentions off the back burner and turn up the heat! What do *you* want more of in your life?

Procrastinator’s Power-UP!

• Feel energized and supported
• Learn the 5 secrets to freedom
• Turn breakdowns into momentum

Experience the value of Professional Group Coaching!
Tuesdays 5:30-6:30 • Ongoing group, limit 8
$59.00 per month • Contact Heather for more details and to register

heather(at)heatherflanagan.com

360-379-0322

Also, see this posting at PTguide – City Guide to Port Townsend, Washington

What does Being your Word mean? It means doing what you say you will do when you say you will do it. Does it mean doing what you say you will do with your co-workers or employees. And then breaking promises left and right with your family? NO! Does it mean keeping your agreements with your family and colleagues and then failing to do those things you secretly tell yourself you ought to do? NO! It means doing what you say you will do when you say you will do it. All we have is our word.

In the book the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz the first agreement is, “Be impeccable with your word. Say only what you mean. Avoid using your word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.”  Ruiz goes on to explain that your word is your power to create.

Indeed, an agreement is a structure for fulfillment. Take the building (I assume) in which you find yourself, for example. Before it could come into being, someone had to draw up the plans. They had to make the plans clear enough for the builder and workers to be able to follow it. What would happen if every other week the plans changed. OK, the foundation has been laid but now we want this room to be half this size. Then next week the plan is changed again and the room has been eliminated from the plans altogether. That would be a very messed up building! Very expensive to complete as well.

The same sort of thing happened for me when I said I wanted more clients. A few years back I would visit my local Chamber of Commerce periodically. I wanted to grow a successful business. But I was changing my niche every month or two. One month it would be entrepreneurs. One month it would be relationships, the next month I was an ADHD coach…. Indeed (laugh).  I never kept one agreement with myself about who I was long enough to let it succeed! And I confused the heck out of my prospects.

Now, I’ve gotten pretty consistent. I have *committed* to focusing on helping people transform procrastination into productivity. It is on all my marketing materials and I now repeat it at my Chamber of Commerce and to whomever will listen as much as I can get away with. And my business is growing! People know how to talk to others about me and what I do. Not only “being my word” but holding a consistent commitment to it, has made all the difference. How might your life be better if you were more impeccable with your word? Share in the comments section below.

Just yesterday at my Chamber of Commerce meeting, I wanted to make a quirky but bold announcement about a discount promotion for Chamber members. While I feel comfortable about telling them about my 3rd Thursday Free Seminars, I felt very uncomfortable speaking up about my special offer. I could tell that I might decide not to say anything about it ”on the fly” as it where.

So you know what I did? I told a woman about my announcement while in the lunch line. Now I was truly committed. And, yes. My palms got sweaty as my blood ran cold. I was fully terrified! I have learned to love that feeling. I have learned that it means I am really moving forward.

And this is how you thumb screw yourself. (Well that came out wrong, but you know what I mean.)

When we are our word, we build trust. This doesn’t mean that we make more agreements. More likely, to be our word, we will make fewer agreements and clearer ones. In fact, when we say “yes” to everything, the chances that we later betray our word are great. This leads others to conclude that we are not trustworthy. Worse, we stop trusting ourselves.

In my life, I have learned to stop myself for a second any time I make an agreement. I think for a second and ask myself, “Do I really *want* to do this?” If not, I am unlikely to follow through. If so, there is a greater likelihood. Then I check myself, “How likely am I to do this with no further reminders?” I have learned that the excitement of the moment often wears off by the time I get around to doing something. Doing other things first can be much more appealing and that thing I agreed to with great enthusiasm can be put on the back burner indefinitely. Then there are consequences, such as my feeling sheepish when I run into the person with whom I made the agreement. I may even treat them as though they are incredibly disappointed in my lack of follow through. Breaking agreements can be subtly damaging to friendships.

Finally, when agreeing to do something, I plan in that moment how I will ensure I follow through. That usually means writing it down so I don’t forget. It may also mean asking for help. This help can be asking the person with whom I made the agreement to email me if they haven’t heard back within a certain time window. If I don’t have paper, I may leave myself a voice mail. I like to say some encouraging things to myself when I leave a voice mail, too, “Hey, you hot thing! Way to keep your agreements. You are really being your word!”