Don’t take anything personally and don’t make assumptions!
I have this small book that I pick up a couple of times a year and it serves me so well. It’s called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Check it out if you don’t know it yet!
In today’s podcast episode of the Magnetic Marketing and Mindset Show, I am focusing on two of the four agreements. They’re all important, but the two that really resonated with me a lot lately are: don’t take anything personally and don’t make assumptions.
This episode covers:
- Why you shouldn’t be taking things personally and how to go about it
- How not to make assumptions, because it eats up our energy and has no real use for us
I hope you will join me for this insightful episode!
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Listen to the podcast here
Mini Session On The Four Agreements
I’m here to talk about a few of The Four Agreements. I don’t know if you’ve read the book, The Four Agreements. It’s by a guy named Don Miguel Ruiz. It’s a small book, and I pick it up a couple of times a year. It always serves me so well. If you don’t have this book, I’m going to encourage you strongly to go get it. If you’re someone who is a listener more than a reader, google Don Miguel Ruiz and The Four Agreements, you’re going to find some interesting interviews including a great one with Oprah that I would encourage listening to.
I want to talk to you about two of the four agreements, but I’m going to tell you what they all are, and then I’m going to dig into the ones that are important for our work. They’re all important, but the two have resonated with me a lot lately. The first one is to be impeccable with your word. The second is don’t take anything personally. The third is don’t make assumptions, and the fourth is always do your best.
I want to dig into don’t take anything personally and don’t make assumptions. Taking things personally is a source of such great pain for us as humans. That could be avoided if we realized that other people’s activities don’t have much to do with us at all. We are all on our own paths. We’re doing what works for us at any moment in time. Everyone is on their own individual journey.
Often, we get our feelings hurt by someone who doesn’t respond to us, someone who maybe says an unkind word, someone who doesn’t treat us the way that we feel like we deserve to be treated, and somebody who doesn’t do what they said they were going to do. They said they were going to join you, and then they don’t. They said they wanted to hit some goals and they don’t. We take other people’s life journeys personally.
When we start to completely let go of other people’s activities and decisions, we have such freedom. All we have to do is start to live our most authentic, loving, purposeful life. Our job is to do our part to live our own best life. I see this show up a lot in networking. People say they’re going to do stuff that they don’t do all the time. That is a human trait. It has nothing to do with us. Getting comfortable with the idea that what somebody else does, thinks, and doesn’t do is not a personal reflection of you.
The other thing that I want to talk about is the second one, which is don’t make assumptions. This is a challenging one. Accept people as exactly who they are and know that until they do something, they may or may not do it. To make assumptions about what people think, what they’re going to do, what they’re not going to do, or how they’re going to react, eats up our energy and it has no use for us to make an assumption about another human.
Accept people as who they are and know that until they actually do something, they may or may not do it.
Brené Brown calls it generous assumption. She says, “Don’t make assumptions.” I like the idea of making generous assumptions. I tell this to my team all the time, “I assume that if someone said they were interested in my products, they’re still interested until they tell me that they’re not. When they tell me that they’re not, I don’t take it personally. I assume that if somebody says that they’re interested in more information, they are still interested until they tell me that they’re not. When they’re not, I’m not taking it personally.” Sometimes, I’ll be disappointed because I got excited about something, but that’s a me thing. I’m disappointed because I got excited. If I acknowledge that, then I can move through that a lot more quickly.
I hope this is helpful. This is a quick one. Don’t make assumptions and don’t take anything personally. My favorite little ninja tip is when I reach out to people and ask them if they’re still interested, if they’d like to take a look, and if I’m inquiring, “Do you want to take a look at this?” At the end of almost everything, I say, “If not, no worries,” and I mean it.
If you have that mindset, you will be relaxed and that posture is far more magnetic than putting pressure on another person and being disappointed when they didn’t live up to your expectations. I hope this was helpful. Have an amazing day. If you’re enjoying this content, please drop a review. I’d appreciate it. I appreciate you. I hope you’re having an amazing day. I look forward to talking to you real soon. Take care.
