A Recap Of The Four Agreements-Don Miguel Ruiz

This post is a recap from my most recent reading of The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.  The book had a profound impact on me, yet as life went on, the message faded from my brain.

I recently decided I needed to revisit the message in the book.  As I began to reread the book, It made me realize just how often I lose my true north.

This is not the type of book that you read just once.  It is a reference manual for life, and should be referred to and reflected on often.  I realize now I made the mistake of reading this book and putting it back on the shelf.  I have decided to read this book quarterly to keep my goals in line.  Also, I will also review each of The Four Agreements every morning when I write out my gratitude journal.

Let’s start with an overview of The Four Agreements, and then we can dive into each agreement individually.

Overview Of The Four Agreements

The Four Agreements starts off with a history of where the agreements originated from, which was group known as the Toltecs.

The Toltecs were an ancient civilization going back as far as the 10th century, and originated in Mexico.  They were a group of men and women who formed a society to foster the knowledge of the ancient ones, according to Ruiz.

The book then continues to describe how the entire world is made up of dreams.  The individuals dreams, along with the family’s dreams, the community’s dreams, all the way to the dreams of the entire humanity.  Ruiz goes on to say that we are born with the capacity to dream, and that the humans before us teach us to dream in the way society wants us to.

Basically, from the time we are born, the world around us is trying to domesticate us and teach us how to think, what to believe, and how to live.  Ruiz states this as the adults hooking the attention of the children as a way to push their rules and beliefs on them.

Once our attention is hooked, we are taught what is right and wrong, what is good and bad, what is pretty and what is ugly, and so on.

These then become our beliefs.  They become this Book Of Law, according to Ruiz.  We judge everything and everyone against this Book Of Law.  In this regard, we act as the judge.  Every agreement we are taught go into this book, even if they go against our inner nature.  These agreements begin to rule our dreams.

The Judge And The Victim

However, we also judge ourselves against this Book Of Law.  Every time something goes against this Book Of Law, our inner judge tells us we are guilty, we need to be punished, and we should be ashamed.  According to Ruiz, we do this to ourselves and others many times throughout each day.

As such, we then become the victim to this way of thinking.  Our inner dialogue begins to say “Poor me, I am no good,” and the judge inside of us agrees and reinforces the thought process.

All of this is based on a belief system that was handed to us, but we never chose to believe.  We were programmed to believe this is how we should think, behave, and act.

The book goes on to say that we have made all these agreements with ourselves and others just to fit into this false system of beliefs that have been forced on us.  These negative agreements take away our positive energy and force us to focus on our negative energy and the negative energy of others.

If we want to get back on the path of joy and happiness, we just need to follow four simple agreements with our selves…

The First Agreement: Be Impeccable With Your Word

Ruiz states this first agreement is the most important one, and also the most difficult to honor.  Ruiz believes this agreement is so important, that with just this first agreement, you will be able to transcend to what Ruiz calls heaven on earth.

It is stated in The Four Agreements that your word is the power that allows you to create.  Your intent manifests through your word.  Everything you think, dream, feel, and who you really are will all be manifested through your word, according to Ruiz.

Your word is so powerful, it can change a life for the better or destroy the life of millions.  Thinking back, I recall one of the speakers from Grant Cardone’s 10X Conference saying this exact statement.  When you take a moment to think about it, you realize just how true this is.  In fact, Hitler used his words to begin the process of destroying millions of lives and reshaping the world as it was known then.

Be Impeccable

Ruiz then goes on to explain why the word impeccable is so important.  Impeccable comes from Latin and translated to “without sin.”   Consider sin to be anything you do which goes against yourself.  You go against yourself when you judge or blame yourself for anything.  Being impeccable is the opposite, and it means not going against yourself.  Ruiz states, “When you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself.”

The book states that sin begins with self rejection, and self rejection is the biggest sin you can commit.  Ruiz goes on to say “self rejection in religious terms is a mortal sin and leads to death.  The opposite of this is being impeccable, which leads to life.”

You must be impeccable with your word when it comes to others.  However, you must also be impeccable with your word when it comes to yourself.  Only you can allow your words to form beliefs about yourself.

The Second Agreement: Don’t Take Anything Personally

According to Ruiz, the next three agreements come directly from the first one.

You shouldn’t take anything that happens around you, or that anyone says to you or about you personally.  As soon as you do, you allow their poison to enter your world.

Every person lives in their own world and you live in yours.  Their world is made up of their dreams, and yours is made up of your dreams.  As soon as you take what they say personally, you allow their world to take control of yours.  Along with that, you are now trying to impose your world into theirs.

When someone says something, even if it is directed at you specifically, it is coming from the agreements they have made and the programming they have undertaken.

Even a direct insult is something they are struggling with in their own world, and are just trying to spew their poison into your world.  If you take this personally, you are allowing them to enter your world.  You are taking their garbage and making it a part of you.

The key word in the Don’t Take Anything Personally agreement is the word “anything.”

This also related to someone complimenting you.

If someone tells you “You are a beautiful person,” you should not take that personally either.  The reason for this is you know you are a beautiful person.  You don’t need anyone else’s opinion to believe this.

The Third Agreement:  Don’t Make Assumptions

Ruiz states “We have the tendency to make assumptions about everything.”

The problem with this thought process is we believe these assumptions to be true.

The act of making assumptions is the act of begging for problems.

Consider this all too common scenario that Ruiz covers in the book: “We make assumptions about what others are doing or thinking — we take it personally — then we blame them and react by sending emotional poison with our word.”

Ruiz goes on to state “All the sadness and drama you have lived in your life was rooted in making assumptions and taking things personally.”  Consider this for a minute.  Think about how much happier we would be if we didn’t make assumptions about other people and instead took the time to ask more questions.

We aren’t immune to making assumptions about ourselves, either.  Ruiz states that we overestimate and underestimate ourselves.  We don’t take the time to ask ourselves the important questions, and we end up lying to ourselves about what we truly want.

The Fourth Agreement:  Always Do Your Best

The final agreement is to always do your best.  This agreement is about taking action and allowing the first three agreements to become deeply ingrained in you, according to Ruiz.

By always doing your best, no matter what, you become free from having to judge yourself.  Without that self judgement, you will not need to subject yourself to all the guilt, shame, and punishment we put ourselves through.

Most people only take action if there is a reward attached to it, such as going to work in a job or career they aren’t passionate about.  The whole process becomes difficult to them because they are usually just doing enough to get the reward, but they are not doing their best.

If you want to have a productive and happy life, you have to approach it every day with intensity.  The best way to draw this intensity from within is to commit to doing your best…always.

Ruiz goes on to say that doing his best has become a ritual.  It has become a ritual because he chooses to make it part of his belief system.

The Challenge

I challenge you to join me on my quest to live out each day by always doing your best.

It won’t be easy.

There will be times where you and I are going to feel like half-assing it.

Find someone who will keep you accountable to always doing your best.

In doing so, it will allow us to take the action we need to take to live out the rest of The Four Agreements, and ultimately live a peaceful and happy life.

Until next time…be well.