The Fourth Agreement: Always do your best.

This agreement is about every area of our life.

Our best changes from moment to moment. Our best is going to be different when we are sick than when we are healthy. It will depend on whether we are feeling happy, sad, upset, angry, or jealous.

As we practice this agreement, we become more aware of when we’re not doing our best in the moment and can change our behavior. Being able to recognize this can keep us out of self-judgement, guilt, and regrets.

We do our best because we want to, not because we feel like we have to, or to please others. Then doing our best feels good. When we feel like we have to do our best for someone else, it seems like it’s never enough and we feel frustrated.

Here’s the other part: if we do our best only because we’re expecting a reward every time, we will be disappointed. When we get in the habit of doing our best, we are naturally rewarded. One way is the sense of satisfaction we get from our actions, we are enjoying what we’re doing.

The Four Agreements are a practice that we can implement into our lives. We can’t expect that we will always be impeccable with our word, old habits are strong and difficult to change. We can’t expect that we won’t make assumptions or take things personally, but we can do our best. Doing our best will help us have awareness and show us how we can do things differently.

The great thing about practicing is that we always have another opportunity to do things differently. When I fall short of an agreement, I know I can start again and again and again!

When we change the world changes.