01.12.08
Are you your own worst enemy?
There have been a lot of blog posts recently on Stephen M. R. Covey’s book The Speed of Trust. And, after reading the book, I can understand why. In it, Mr. Covey provides a very straight forward message about why trust is so important in our lives. The reasoning behind The Speed of Trust is that with trust relationships are more efficient and cost less. Mr. Covey discusses how Warren Buffet can close a mega-million dollar deal in a few minutes and a handshake when there is a high level of trust involved with both parties.
Before I picked up the book, I knew that trust was important to relationships with other people, but the book caused me to learn something new – that one’s trust in themselves is just as important.
Mr. Covey gives the example of when he tried to change a very normal and usual part of his daily life – he wanted to wake up earlier each morning. Simple enough, he just set the alarm an hour earlier and went to bed. Well, the next morning (and subsequent mornings) Covey found himself hitting the snooze alarm, and then finally waking an hour later. What he began to notice was that by not being able to accomplish this task, he found himself frustrated and couldn’t trust himself to wake up at the earlier time. When he realized this was a source of frustration, he dealt with it.
For me, and I’m sure many others, this example hit home. If I could wake earlier, then I would be more productive, right? Well, knowing myself the way that I do, I would rather stay up all night working on a task, then get started earlier in the morning (I already arrive at work at 7am). But, the example helped me better understand how I can get frustrated when I don’t get everything done on my “To-do” list.
See, each time we promise something to ourselves (e.g. wake up earlier) and then break that promise to ourselves, we’re degrading the amount of trust we have in ourselves to complete a task. This causes us to become unsure, less self-confident and less willing to set goals; however small they may seem to be. We are undermining ourselves.
The motto to be learned here is that don’t promise something to yourself that you can’t deliver. Don’t try to get 100 things done in one day when realistically, you can only accomplish 50. By keeping promises to ourselves, we are building trust in ourselves and that allows us to lead richer and more quality lives.
Joanna Vahlsing
