About those promises you’ve made

I’m sure you know how easy it is to get distracted by all of the hustle going on outside. Sometimes even to a point that you start to doubt whether you’re supposed be doing what you promised yourself you would.

Keeping up with your promises to yourself, though, is so important, especially for anyone who is used to attend to the needs of others before those of their own.

In keeping promises to yourself, you act in ways that make you feel worthy. And when you consistently keep your promises to yourself, you consistently align with the idea of being worthy. Such a powerful way to keep those confidence levels up.

On the other hand, when we do not keep the promises we’ve made to ourselves, that’s when we’re planting seeds of self-doubt in our mind.

Consistently done, we suddenly are convinced of unworthiness. Not caused by anything else than our own behavior. The habit of not keeping your own promises.

When our lives are run by the vicious lie of unworthiness, life seems like a never-ending downward spiral. Not really helpful in terms of your confidence. Or your emotional wellbeing.

Why am I talking about this now?

We’re in the brink of summer holidays and sometimes we give so many promises to ourselves of all the things we then do. And sometimes we overpromise and end up not keeping those promises. Those unkept promises may cause a downward spiral and, in worst case scenario, lead to massively pulling back from enjoying your holiday altogether.

To avoid this, awareness of your promises is the key. Be conscious of the promises you make to yourself and put effort in keeping those few chosen promises.

It’s more about quality than quantity.

One of the reasons we fail to keep the promises we’ve made to ourselves is that we tend to give too many promises at once. Meaning that we want to be doing too many things at once. Well, how has that worked for you?

Instead, think of those ten or more promises you’ve now made and evaluate which ones are the most important ones to you. Narrow those promises down to one. Maximum three.

Sure you can have all those earlier made promises on the list, yet start to work (at max) on three of those. And leave the others for later. Communicate your perhaps changed priorities to those whom it may concern (note! no need to explain yourself to anyone who is not directly involved) and get to work on keeping that promise.

Few things that may help you on the way:

  1. Identify the first doable step and chunk it (and every following step, too) into bite-size pieces
  2. Reward yourself after every step
  3. Make sure your rewards are the kind that keep you moving toward your ultimate goal and not away from it
  4. Keep on keeping on!

The promises we give hold tremendous power. They do not only affect us, the givers of them, but those whom we give them. From early on we’ve been taught how important it is that we keep our promises, in other words, act according to how we speak.

However, why has it only been taught that it’s important to keep the promises you’ve made to others? When it’s as important, if not even more important that you keep your own promises too.

We’ve been taught that when keeping our promises to others, we maintain a good reputation. And that keeping your records straight in that way, you have a good shot at life. It’s probably not strange for you to bend over backwards to keep your words to others.

But what about bending over backwards to keep your promises to yourself? Not part of your every day life? Perhaps time to rethink that option.

The studies on cognitive dissonance show that when your actions and beliefs don’t match, we either change our actions or our beliefs to re-establish inner alignment. In other words, if you consistently keep on not keeping your promises to yourself, you may plant those seeds of self-doubt and may eventually start to believe you’re less than or not worthy enough – just to reach an alignment between your actions and beliefs.

Wouldn’t that affect negatively your shot at life?

After all, we give promises to ourselves for the betterment of life. With good intentions. Let’s not stop ourselves from making those promises happen. 

Even though keeping your own promises may not always be the most funniest thing to do in that particular moment, and may feel like it’s optional, keeping promises to yourself is still one of those actions that boosts your confidence levels. Not to mention your productivity and happiness.

Much love,
Paula
xx

Ps. Are you on Insta? Follow me at @paulaimmo for more confidence inspo!