The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)

by Miguel Ruiz

Attention is the ability we have to discriminate and to focus only on that which we want to perceive.

With that fear of being punished and that fear of not getting the reward, we start pretending to be what we are not, just to please others, just to be good enough for someone else.

That is why humans resist life. To be alive is the biggest fear humans have. Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive — the risk to be alive and express what we really are. Just being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans. We have learned to live our lives trying to satisfy other people’s demands. We have learned to live by other people’s points of view because of the fear of not being accepted and of not being good enough for someone else.

Trying to be good enough for them, we create an image of perfection, but we don’t fit this image. We create this image, but this image is not real.

We know we are not what we believe we are supposed to be and so we feel false, frustrated, and dishonest. We try to hide ourselves, and we pretend to be what we are not. The result is that we feel unauthentic and wear social masks to keep others from noticing this.

We dishonor ourselves just to please other people.

Pathological people pleaser 🥲

In your whole life nobody has ever abused you more than you have abused yourself. And the limit of your self-abuse is exactly the limit that you will tolerate from someone else.

We have the need to be accepted and to be loved by others, but we cannot accept and love ourselves. The more self-love we have, the less we will experience self-abuse. Self-abuse comes from self-rejection, and self-rejection comes from having an image of what it means to be perfect and never measuring up to that ideal. Our image of perfection is the reason we reject ourselves; it is why we don’t accept ourselves the way we are, and why we don’t accept others the way they are.

In these agreements you say, “This is what I am. This is what I believe. I can do certain things, and some things I cannot do. This is reality, that is fantasy; this is possible, that is impossible.”

If you want to live a life of joy and fulfillment, you have to find the courage to break those agreements that are fear-based and claim your personal power. The agreements that come from fear require us to expend a lot of energy, but the agreements that come from love help us to conserve energy and even gain extra energy.

The first agreement is to be impeccable with your word. It sounds very simple, but it is very, very powerful.

Your word is the power that you have to create.

The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life.

When you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself.

I am being impeccable with the word, because that action will produce a like reaction.

Being impeccable with your word is the correct use of your energy; it means to use your energy in the direction of truth and love for yourself.

Whenever we hear an opinion and believe it, we make an agreement, and it becomes part of our belief system.

The second agreement is don’t take anything personally.

Personal importance, or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about “me.”

No, I don’t take it personally. Whatever you think, whatever you feel, I know is your problem and not my problem. It is the way you see the world. It is nothing personal, because you are dealing with yourself, not with me.

If someone is not treating you with love and respect, it is a gift if they walk away from you.

You are never responsible for the actions of others; you are only responsible for you.

The third agreement is don’t make assumptions.

It is always better to ask questions than to make an assumption, because assumptions set us up for suffering.

Real love is accepting other people the way they are without trying to change them. If we try to change them, this means we don’t really like them.

Have the courage to ask questions until you are clear as you can be, and even then do not assume you know all there is to know about a given situation. Once you hear the answer, you will not have to make assumptions because you will know the truth.

The fourth agreement is about the action of the first three: Always do your best.

Learning from your mistakes means you practice, look honestly at the results, and keep practicing. This increases your awareness.

You don’t need to judge yourself, feel guilty, or punish yourself if you cannot keep these agreements.

Every time we face one of the fears we are a little more free.