The Re-learned Lesson

“Write them down. So you won’t forget them!” my father said, sounding cautious, like the way all caring fathers advise their sons. I was 15 then and I had forgotten a promise I had had made to a friend; a forgotten promise that changed his life. Not remembering that promise caused him to fail and stay in same grade at school for another year.

That was not the last time, and I used to forget many of my promises and commitments since then.

In all those incidence my father would advised me the same thing; “Write them down. So you won’t forget them!” And a wedding changed everything. I suppose to play a special piano piece; as gift of the bride (who is a close friend of mine) to the groom, on their wedding. She have had asked me 4 months earlier than the event. That time I was 4rth year college student and due to our hectic schedules of quizzes, exams, different extracurricular activities as school officer and my job (I was working as a real estate broker in selling raw lands) I had forgotten about it. During the wedding when I was called to play the piece, there I was! Standing shocked and surprised. “Oh my dear God! Not Agggggain! I totally forgot about it” I believe you can imagine the rest of the story.

As they say “A mistake is going to be repeated again and again till the lesson is learned!”

Right there in the middle of the wedding I could imagine my father smiling at me and saying “See what happened. I told you son, Write them down. So you won’t forget them!”

Have you ever experienced forgetting such promises and commitments (of course except the wedding experience of mine). We tend to give promises, or commit to someone or something, and then we unconsciously forget about them. Here is what I have learned:

And I did it after that wedding night. I bought a small notebook and I called it “My Commitments” and divided it into different chapters. At the first page of each chapter wrote things like “to myself”, “to my family”, “to my school”, “to my barkada”, etc. and I wrote everything which I was responsible for; either through giving a promise or committing in something.

Since then I hardly got into troubles and people got to believe that I am man of my words. I am hardly late in a meeting or for an appointment (except for incidents which are out of my control) and I feel good about it, which is part of my leadership practice.

But some lessons should be relearned all throughout the life as we grow stronger a become better each day;

Recently I was told by one of the our Community Coaches, that I had committed myself in a task through a text message reply. Since I always participate in our activities I totally forgot about that text message. When I was remembered I didn’t feel good. I am a responsible person and I do my best in tasks which I accept. I believe a true leader keeps his promises and as T. Harv Eker said “Successful people never forget their commitments”. So there I just became quiet accepting my mistake, “Leaders admit their mistakes and learn from them” and I imagined my father again; this time telling me “you forgot to add another chapter to your Notebook, a chapter called “to CA2020”.


Well I relearned the lesson.

“Don’t commit yourself till you are sure that you can do it, and when do, try your best not to forget them, and if you failed accept the consequences with a big heart.”