It’s even worse if they are not your friends/family but are a professional of some kind – the least they should do is give you a “I haven’t done it yet” progress update, or a “I’msorry, I overcommitted myself to that at the time, can we work out a c ompromise?”.

I just put my promises on my main to do list which is split into Work, Home, Aikido and Personal. An interesting point: How do you feel about breaking promises to yourself? I suspect people do this all the time e.g. Give up smoking, start going to Gym etc.

Also is a promise just when you say “I promise”? I don’t think so, it’s when someone (or you) says “sure I’ll do that for you” and you take that to mean that they actually will. Really, I think the mark of a man/woman is doing what you say you will do…It’s something very important in martial arts, which build good character traits of course. It’s also linked with making a decision. If I say “who’s going on the next Aikido course” and some people half put their hands up, I say “make a decision – either way doesn’t bother me, but once you’ve made it, stick to it, otherwise you may let others down if you change your mind”. Ever had friends all say “sure we’ll go to X with you” and then most of them bomb out at the last minute, how annoying is that?

/rant off :-)