Crippled CEO Blog #084: I Said I Would

Crippled CEO Blog #084:

“I said I would, so I did.”

I sent this as a text to my hair slicer after paying her to do a quick clean-up to my friend’s neck. She said I didn’t have to do that. She was happy to do it for free. 

But I said I would, so I did. 

And when I looked at the message, I realized that sentence could be a philosophy for living a life. 

How often do we say that we’re going to do things, but then never do?

For ourselves. For others.

How often do promises and good intentions just fall to the wayside and get forgotten and lost?

I think it happens pretty often.

I know that it can be a problem for me. I used to be worse. Now, if I tell someone I’m going to do something, you can pretty much guarantee I’m going to get it done. But I’m still pretty bad at doing the things I tell myself that I will do, the things I want to do for me.

It can be easy to justify. You can rationalize that the person you promised a thing to won’t mind, or that they can wait a little longer. If that’s not true, and you’re lucky, they will tell you. If you are fortunate, your friend will reach out to you and inform you that this promise meant a lot to them, and maybe give you a second chance. If you’re not lucky, you will never know how badly you disappointed them or affected them. You won’t know that they don’t trust you anymore.

And you can try and rationalize the things you were supposed to do for yourself, as well. Maybe it wasn’t a great idea. Or maybe you’ll get to it eventually.

But how different would your life be if you just did all the things you said you would? How less overwhelmed would you feel, if you stopped and considered, really carefully, before you offered your help to somebody, or said yes to a request?

How different would your reputation be if people knew that they could trust your word in the same way they trust the Sun rising every morning? What new opportunities might open up for you?

I said I would, so I did.

This can be you. If you are careful with your word, and then a zealot about keeping it, this can be a thing that you can tell people.

And you might be surprised the impact it has on your life.

(I can’t even type out the promises that your mom keeps to me. Phew. One promise that I try to keep is sending out a text message every Sunday with a link to the latest blog. You can get this link, also, if you send a message with the word CRIP to the number 484848. I think you’ll be glad that you did.)