Why you should always do what you say you will

• Helen Dowling (Exceptional Thinking)
• Friday 28 September 2012

Last week I had a dilemma – a client had asked me to call them on Thursday afternoon at 3pm. Problem was I was exhausted! I’d had a very long week and the last thing I wanted to do was pick up the phone and give him a call.

(Not to mention the amount of people who say they’re going to be there at a certain time and then are not!)

But I’d promised to do this, so dutifully at 3pm I picked up the phone.

The client was there, we had a great chat and he gave me some more work! Now just think, would that have happened if I hadn’t picked up the phone? I doubt it very much.

In business therefore, I think it’s vital to always do what you say you are going to do – even if you can’t be bothered; are too busy doing other things and generally think it’s a waste of your time. If you’ve promised to do it, do it!

We all know the feeling of how disappointing it is when someone has promised to do something and then actually doesn’t.

I can think of two examples recently – one was where someone asked me to send over an article for her newsletter and promised to let me know when it arrived and when it would be going in. Even though I’ve sent the article over, months have now passed and I’ve heard nothing back. Does that mean she hasn’t received it?

Another example was after doing an interview for someone, he promised to send me the recording. Again I’ve heard nothing back.

I’ve been left feeling frustrated and annoyed that these people (not to mention countless other examples) haven’t done what they said they would do.

Now, of course you could argue that I could of course drop them both an email and chase them, but you see here are my thoughts on this.

I think most of the time problems we experience in the UK and probably around the world are caused by people not doing what they say they are going to do. That means the rest of us have to put it on our to-do list to chase these people, which seems a little unfair to me.

If all of us just took a bit of thought and actually did what we promised to do, it would save all of us a lot of time, energy and effort and speed things up considerably.

So next time you say that you’re doing to do something, write it down so that you don’t forget and set a reminder on your calendar and then actually do what you said you would do and keep your promises. You’ll be amazed at the response it gets – especially if you get known for keeping your word!

www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk

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