When I worked in advertising one of my guiding work principles was to always under promise and over deliver. It's a phrase a lot of people in the service industry use and it can be a little trite when you hear it all of the time but I firmly believe in it. It used to make one of my clients crazy when I wouldn't promise to some deadline or the other. I would say, "I will try my best." or "I can get it to you on Tuesday for sure, I am not sure about Monday." He would respond, "You are just trying to look good by being faster! You are under promising!" And he was half right. I was under promising. If I wasn't sure I could do it in a tight timeline I told people that. Now I also worked my ass off to get it done quickly and usually got it to them early, but not always. So I wouldn't promise to do it earlier than I was positive I could get it done.
Under promise and over deliver.
Make sure you are only committing to things you know you can do, but then work to do more.
It's stuck with me even in my life now. I can see it in my constant goal setting. It makes me crazy when I set a goal and cannot reach it. That's why you will often see me set one goal and then have a stretch goal as well. I am pretty sure I can hit the first mark, but will strive for the second. Even to myself I try not to over promise.
Because here is the thing, you do the over promise thing one to many times and people stop believing in you. Even if it's you yourself that you need to believe in. I know, Brent knows, my friends know, that if I say I will do something I will do my damnedest to get it done. And if for some reason I don't, I will work extra hard to make it up to you with something else. I don't give my word a lot. I'm not a big false promiser. I'm an I'll try, I'll work on it, I'll see, much more often than I will. But once I say I will, I really mean I will.
I write lists. I take notes in my phone. I send myself meeting reminders. All because I don't want to give my word and then fall short. And I know that I might because I'm also pretty multi-focused at times. (sounds better than flighty) I don't want something important to slip my mind. And sometimes it does. So if I tell you I will do something for you, the next thing you will often see if me whipping out my phone to put it on my calendar. "Oh it's not that big of a deal!" Yes, yes it is. I just told you I would so I will and this way I really will.
It makes me crazy when people promise things and don't follow through. Or constantly say one thing and then do a completely different thing. Your word is the only thing you have that is truly yours and if you break it over and over then I know that you aren't to be trusted. You are broken. And I won't depend on you to be anything other than broken. I would much rather hear from you that you will try to do something (Yoda was wrong, sorry, but he was) and then fail rather than that you will for sure do something and then have you not follow through. Don't promise me something you cannot deliver.
Looking at Trump tweet insults this morning after calling for unity last week just reinforces this belief. He's a broken man, running a broken system, that we are all supposed to trust in to keep their word. It's why I wouldn't last in politics. I would want to deliver results and would meet up with the people I was supposed to work with to get them done only to discover that nobody keeps their word...it's not a good way to run a local co-op let alone a country. When did we as a country give up on expecting our elected officials to keep their word? When did we decide that politicians just lie so there is no reason to expect better of them. When did we decide that their word was not only not their bond but worse than used scotch tape but that was okay with us and we would vote for them again?
I don't get it. It's just not my way. It's ridiculous. It's broken.
We need to figure this out. We need to start voting for other people if the people who are supposed to represent us aren't. We need to demand that when they speak they speak the truth. And if they don't deliver they need to have a really good reason why not.
We deserve some under promising and over delivering.
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