Do You Deliver on Your Promises?

This is an embarrassing post to write. I realized recently that I didn’t deliver on something that I promised. When I realized I had completely screwed up, I was mortified.

I try hard to be a person who delivers what they promise – a person who stands by their word.

I try hard to do what I say I am going to do.

Ironically, my blog is the one place I sometimes drop the ball on my promises. Since I definitely want to be someone who walks the talk, I am constantly working to improve in this area and set a higher standard.

So what about you? Do you deliver on your promises?

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Let’s have a look at some ways to deliver on your promises and improve on our follow-through.

Learn to say no

I used to be guilty of this myself, but thankfully I hardly ever do it anymore because I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable saying no.

A lot of people feel bad saying no. When someone asks them to do something, they automatically say yes without really thinking about it.

They agree to do something, then don’t deliver on their promise because they never wanted to do it in the first place.

A lot of people say yes knowing full well they’ll bail later on.

I would strongly avoid doing this because while people might excuse one or two instances of you bailing at the last minute, over time you will get a reputation as being unreliable and, dare I say it, untrustworthy.

People will start to distrust everything you say if you are always bailing at the last minute and letting people down. Don’t damage your reputation. Say no right from the start (politely, of course) if you know you have no intention of following through.

Often, a lot of the time, people don’t say yes – it’s more of a maybe.

Head’s up: maybes are confusing to people since they never really know where they stand. If you are unsure or need time to think about it, tell the person you will get back to them and let them know. Make sure you do let them know, or you will just come across as flaky.

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Put tasks in your calendar

This is a biggie. As Marie Forleo mentioned in the fabulous B-School – “If it’s not scheduled – it’s not real.”

You have to schedule work to be done. You also have to be specific about when you are going to get it done. Saying you are going to do something next Wednesday isn’t good enough. You actually have to slot it into your Wednesday calendar for a specific time slot.

Then, of course, you have to stick as closely as you can to your calendar!

The interesting thing is I work very precisely to my calendar in my full-time day job, yet I struggle working to my calendar with my blogging/writing, which leads me to the next point.

A book that could help with your productivity is Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy. This book is a pocket-rocket of great productivity ideas.

Be realistic

One of my biggest problems (and perhaps yours as well) is that I am not realistic in the planning stage.

I might plan to come home from work and write for three hours several nights a week. I have it in my schedule; I plot out what I want to achieve. It sounds easy enough until the week starts.

Then the reality hits.

I have to work back one night, another day I have to run to the chiropractors after work, a friend pops over unexpectedly another night, or I’m just too exhausted after a demanding day at work.

To put it bluntly, my anticipated 3 hours of writing each night just wasn’t realistic to start with. By not realistically planning my calendar, I set myself up to fail.

Being realistic about what I can achieve each day is one of my biggest challenges. I often over-plan myself and am not practical about how long each individual task is going to take.

A classic example is when I plan to action comments, write a blog post, and do some updates on social media but choose an unrealistic period of time to get all three tasks done. I would be better off picking one major task or two of the smaller ones and focusing my attention on them.

Make sure that when you are planning, you are realistic about what you can achieve in a certain amount of time. Be realistic about how long things take to complete. Try to schedule in some flexibility for unexpected situations.

Deliver on your promises

Deep down, we all want to be a person of our word. We want to do the things we say we are going to do.

Do your best to deliver on your promises. It’s okay to be a work in progress. You are definitely worth the work. Deliver on your promises, and you will feel more peaceful and content within yourself.

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Make sure you grab a copy of Eat That Frog! to improve your productivity.

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