Do Promises Really Matter?
You have told yourself over and over again that you are going to do something for yourself, eat healthier.
Get up and listen weights, start that business read every day.
Take time to soak in the tub with a good book three times a week, go out and walk in the sunshine five times a week.
Boy, we could keep going, couldn't we? What are the promises that you tell yourself that you are going to do for you. I'm going to be up early every day, I'm going to go to bed earlier so that I can get up early. That's a promise I made to myself many, many times.
I am going to read 10 pages of a book a day. That's also a promise I've made to myself.
But if I'm truthful with myself, then I know that I have broken those promises to myself many times over. And I got to thinking about how it would feel if someone in my life had made that many promises to me. Without fulfilling those promises to me.
Would I trust them anymore? No, I would not.
Would you?
Would you trust someone who made a promise to you over and over and over again without ever making good on their promise? Maybe you've had someone that and you're like that in your life? I have. Do you trust them anymore? Do you even want to hang out with them? I don't.
What about the person who cancels plans on you all the time?
I can remember when I was growing up, my mom had a friend who every time she made plans with this friend, this friend canceled whether my mom had bought tickets or, or whatever. And my dad would say to her, “why do you keep making plans with this person? You know, they're going to cancel at the last minute.”
And my mom finally did stop asking. And it always made me sad. And I never forgot my mom, saying well, I just think maybe next time she'll keep her promise to me. Maybe next time she'll keep her promise to me. She never did. And eventually, that friendship sizzled the way it just slowly faded.
See, here's the thing, when you make promises to yourself that you don't keep to yourself. You start to not believe in yourself.
And you start to change your actions to or your thought process and what you believe to the actions that you are seeing. So in my case, if I was promising myself over and over again that I was going to go to bed early and Get up early and read in the morning. And I didn't do it.
My actions started to match exactly what I was doing. Like in my expectations of myself match to my actions. It was this big, crazy circle that I was in. That all started the first line of the circle began with me not keeping a promise to myself.
If I broke as many promises to my friends, as I broke to myself, I would have no friends.
You don't break one promise to yourself, or one promise to a friend. And the relationship is fractured. But as time goes on, the more promises that you break, the more chances you have have that relationship being fractured, and it will be fractured, it is a slow fade. It's a slow fade. As you break more and more promises, I want to I want to focus on the promises that we make to ourselves though, because there are consequences of breaking promises to yourself. When you think about it, the reason that you make a promise to yourself is to better yourself in some way, right?
You want to start reading or have coffee on your porch every morning as the sun is rising to help raise your cortisol naturally, or maybe it's getting massages, or maybe it's getting your nails done or getting healthier, lifting your weights more taking walks, taking the dog for a walk to help the dog get exercise, whatever it is. Promises to ourselves are almost always because we want to better ourselves. And then we stand ourselves up.
When someone breaks a promise to you, you feel sad and hurt, unimportant and disappointed. Well, now we're feeling that way, because of something we did to ourselves. We unconsciously start to view ourselves as unreliable. And we believe that we aren't important, or we aren't worthy of this. It is so damaging. Our actions and our beliefs don't line up. And so we change our beliefs to match our actions.
Let me say that, again. When we're breaking promises to ourselves, our actions and beliefs don't line up. So we change our beliefs to match our actions. And the slow fade is that slowly but surely, we believe that we don't matter. And we don't deserve the time that we're trying to set aside for ourselves, or whatever that promise is.
On the flip side, the benefits of keeping promises to yourself, it boosts your confidence and reminds you of your value and your worthiness. It boosts your productivity and makes you happier. You're filling your own tank so that you have time to give to others there are so many benefits of keeping a promise to yourself. And confidence is a huge one. We all want to walk in confidence. We want to stand up for ourselves and speak and use our voice and do the things that we've wanted to do for so long. And we wonder why we have no confidence and then we can look back and see all the promises that we broke into ourselves.
This is the year that I am going to _____________________.
How many times do we keep that promise to ourselves?
I challenge you to treat yourself as you would treat your best friend, someone that you would never ever, ever break a promise to someone that would never just blow off because you know there's a good Netflix series on so we don't have to go to bed on time even though we promised ourselves that today we're going to how do we keep our promises to ourselves? We've talked about why because you are worth it.
That is the underlying reason of why you need to keep promises to yourself because you are worthy and you are worth it. Taking care of yourself is not some luxury that can wait It is crucial to you doing now.
So schedule it in, plan for it block the time off and show up for yourself. Show up for yourself. Sometimes I get to the end of my day and I think man I promised myself I was going to tap into that online course of course I bought but did it go in my calendar. I wrote in everything and anything that had to do with somebody else got written in my calendar, but did I schedule my own time? Did I schedule that for myself? Absolutely.
Are you showing up for yourself?
Keeping promises to yourself and to others is a lifestyle. It is not selfish to keep promises to yourself.
Is it selfish to keep promises to other people? No. It is not selfish for you to keep promises to yourself either. Ask someone in your life to keep you accountable. What are the promises that you want to be held accountable for? For me? Definitely, it's getting in bed on time and getting up and spending time reading every morning. What are the promises that you've made to yourself that you're not keeping to yourself? What are you going to do about it?
You are worthy of keeping these promises to yourself.
Your journal prompt today is three promises that I will make for myself today and then keep these three promises.
I will be in bed on time.
Drink 50 ounces of water.
Walk for 30 minutes— walk for five minutes.
