There are a lot of good books out there but a lot of good SHORT books. This book in particular is concise and straight to the point and that’s what I love about it.

I enjoy reading self help books but sometimes the book is so repetitive and the value very little that it leaves you raging and asking yourself, 

‘oh why! Oh why did I pick up this book’ 

Summary of the 4 Agreements.

The four agreements are about 4 agreements (obvious from the title) that you need to make with yourself then and there. It’s a book that attempts to explain that by inculcating these 4 little habits into your practice, you transcend the daily frustrations that come with well you know Interacting with other humans. 

The Four agreements are;

• Be impeccable with your words 
• Never take anything personally 
• Don’t make assumptions
• Always do your best. 

4 Lessons from the book.

These 4 agreements are the 4 lessons that the book has to offer. So let’s break them down. 

• Be impeccable with your words: 

How do you speak to yourself and others? In your eyes, you are a low value person and that reflects in how you talk to yourself and others. 

You say things like, ‘I’m a failure’ and then act surprised when you do fail. 

You call yourself a ‘loser’ and then wonder why you lose all the time. 

It’s just your ‘bad luck’ right ? 

The way you speak to yourself and those around you matters is the lesson that being impeccable with your words has to teach us. 

You never talk down on yourself even when you are alone because it’s not a show you’re putting on, you’re doing this for yourself. You are doing it for You. 

You can’t speak the language of a failure and succeed, the world doesn’t worlr doesn’t operate that way. 

From today, you make a promise to stop talking down on yourself and those around you. Let your words give life to people and not condemn them. 

The worst way you can part ways with someone is for them to wish they never met you. 

• Never take anything personally

Imagine the amount of self absordness you must be entrenched in to think that the stranger who frowned at you meant it. 

Oftentimes we live our lives so self absorbed that we fail to realize that others around us have a life just as complex as ours with their own set of unique experiences. 

Get out of your head. People do things on their own accord and for reasons best know to them. Even if a stranger curses you in the street, it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. 

“Don’t let compliments go to your head nor criticism to your heart.”

It’s never personal, you need to understand your self worth as a person that when you step out and get a compliment or a curse you don’t let it get to you. 

That compliment didn’t make you believe you look good, you already knew that and told yourself before you work out the door. You don’t need any external validation. ( even if sometimes it feels good)

In the same manner, if someone says you don’t look good in that outfit, you know you do so you bid them farewell and continue to have a nice day. 

We spend so much time thinking about things that we should have already moved on from. 

• Never make assumptions

For overthinkers like myself this is especially hard because we thrive off making assumptions. 

They didn’t smile back perhaps they don’t like me. 

They didn’t ask for my phone number perhaps they’re not interested. 

Did they look at me that way because my outfit is funny? 

All this does it take up a lot of mental space and let me tell you what overthinking does at it best. Overthinking is a distorted way of confirming some deep belief that you have. 

You already think they don’t like you, so when they didn’t smile even if it is completely unrelated, you grasped at the straws. 

You think they’re not interested, so when they didn’t ask for your phone number then you rueld it as due to that reason. 

It’s another way of taking thing personally but one thing I’ve learnt, is assumptions is just pure ignorance. 

You don’t know why they did that so don’t worry your head about it. In the rare of occasion that your assumption turns out to the be true, the cost of worrying about it constantly is the biggest downside because you could spend that time relaxing or engaging in something productive. 

• Always do your best: 

This is the fourth and last lesson in the book but arguably the best. 

A common misconception about this is that doing your best must always feel satisfying. The same way your energy levels different during the day is the same way your best can take different forms. 

Your best won’t always feel like your best. Because your best when you’re energized and motivated will definitely not be your best when you are tired and sleepy. 

The goal is to do your best not be perfect so it’s okay if on some days, your best is to get 15% of your work done and some days that can be 70%. 

So how do you know you’ve done your best? 

Doing your best is not a universal standard that’s why it’s Your best and not My best. So do what you feel is your best and then move on to something else. 

But most important do your best in sticking to the 4 agreements in this book.