Keeping Your Word (text)

Do people believe you? When you tell people that you’ll do something, do you do it? The sad truth is that most people don’t keep their word. “Sorry” has become the catch-phrase for all situations. Just say you’re sorry, right? That’ll take care of everything, won’t it? Not really. If you have integrity and keep your word, you won’t have to say, “I’m sorry”.
There’s a difference between saying, “I’m sorry” when an accident happens, or you make a mistake—it’s necessary to say, “I’m sorry”. The problem is that “I’m sorry” is used by many people to apologize for laziness and lack of integrity. After a while, “I’m sorry” means nothing.
What am I talking about here? If you tell a friend that you’ll meet him at 8 o’clock, you don’t show up twenty minutes late—there’s no integrity in that. If you tell your boss that you’ll complete a task by next Monday, make sure it’s completed by Monday. If you promise to go to someone’s birthday party on Thursday night, don’t blow it off because it’s become inconvenient for you.
The problem in all three of these, and many other situations like these, is that we lose integrity and credibility—we give people reason to not believe us. Our reputation suffers. Here’s something else that suffers—our self-esteem. How does it feel when you’re twenty minutes late? When that important project is not completed? When we don’t show up at our friend’s party, after promising that we would? You probably don’t feel too good about yourself and your confidence and outlook on life take a hit.
It’s simple, really—from now on, when you tell someone that you’ll do something, keep your word. It will do YOU a world of good.

Key Words

Catch-phrase-n-a convenient idiom or statement that is often over-used.

Integrity-n-consisting of quality, maintaining consistent behavior, truth, honor.

Keep your word-idiom-doing what you say you will do.

Blow it off-idiom-to skip something, to not do it, without much care or concern.

Self-esteem-n-how we feel about ourselves.

Take a hit-idiom-a negative impact, to lose value, become less.