Keep Your Promise
You can avoid making promises with others because when you are not in a position to keep your promise, people shall start disbelieving in you and once you are identified as such, you would lose all prestige in that society around you. People can tolerate "No" from your side, but people would not tolerate when you are not fulfilling your promise. Once you make a promise, other having this promise shall be having faith in you and would be waiting that you would be doing the duties allotted to you and he himself shall be doing other things. But when you fail to keep your promise, he would be losing much which could have been avoided if you had said "No" to him immediately and too without any wait-period. Once he has got "No" from your side, he would have located some one else to do that work for him. Therefore, you must keep your promise and must try to establish a faith in mind of others so that they should start loving you and respecting you. You must understand that the other man had chosen you utilizing his best intelligence and you were found a fit person to work for him. And when he approached you, you agreed to work for him. He feels proud of the fact that he had chosen a right person. But when it was just a promise just to put him of and when that fellow comes to know that you simply put him of, he shall be frustrated and you are the person who brought all these frustrations in him. You must examine yourself before you promise and once you accepted a responsibility, you must be true to yourself and to the person with whom you have made a promise. This habit must be developed in you and in due course you would turn a responsible person and most of the people shall start loving you.