Character works like a credit score. Every on-time payment counts, and one default follows you.

Trust accumulates slowly and drops quickly, which is unfair and also how every reputation works. Hundreds of ordinary kept commitments build a balance nobody ever mentions, and one significant failure becomes the thing people check for afterwards. Knowing about that asymmetry in advance is better than discovering it during the year you need the benefit of the doubt.

Keep the small promises that seem too minor to matter, since those are the deposits. If you have defaulted on something, repair it directly and then be boringly reliable for a long stretch. Recovery is slow and genuinely possible.