Why Do We Break Promises to Ourselves?
What would you say if I asked how often you broke a promise to your son or daughter?
What about breaking a promise to your sister, mom, or husband?
I’m not talking about breaking a promise due to something significant like an emergency. I mean breaking a promise because something more important came up.
Rarely, if ever… right? You rarely break promises to the people you love.
Then why do you break promises to yourself?
Simple promises to eat less or exercise more. Or showing up to meetings on time. Big promises like lowering your stress, going for that dream job, not losing your temper again, or getting rid of that toxic person on your team.
Are you not important?
Are you any less important?
Breaking promises to yourself is a double whammy.
Every time you break a promise to yourself, you are one more step behind in achieving something you desire.
Breaking promises to yourself keeps you from something you want with negative consequences to you.
And, with each broken promise, it gets easier to break another one, and another one, leading to a breaking promises cycle.
That’s the first whammy.
The second whammy is all the thoughts of blame and self-recrimination that surface as a result.
You ‘should’ all over yourself.
Said another way…
You sh#t on yourself.
I should have! Would have! Could have!
Should-ing sits with blame. You blame yourself for not following through, getting distracted, or letting things derail you.
But when you don’t show up for yourself and your goals—like that promise to stand up for yourself in a meeting, ask for a raise, or fire that employee—that irrational inner critic runs amok, creating negative drama that plays on repeat in your head.
It zaps you of your energy. The most messed up part about it is that breaking promises to yourself almost always drains more energy from you than actually keeping that promise to yourself.
Should-ing also impacts your self-esteem.
That's the double whammy.
What if putting yourself first is actually keeping promises to others?
When you fulfill a personal promise, you show up better for the people in your life.
When you are happy, accomplished, and good about keeping your promises to grow and do something for yourself, the people you love will see how happy you are.
And…
They’ll see whom they can become.
You are their role model.
Do you want the most important people in your life to break their promises to themselves? Of course not.
Do you want them not to achieve because they don’t prioritize themselves? Of course, you don’t.
If you don’t want that for them, show them how it's done.
Choose courage over 'shoulding'.
Start doing what you’ve promised yourself to become the person you want to be.
One Client's Result:
"I felt I was treading water without having a clear picture of what I wanted to do for my business and how to stay on track in my business. I FEEL so much better about where I am in my business and who I am in my business. I learned to let go of forcing a very strict schedule, one where I basically woke up and was behind, to a schedule that worked with me as who I am. Instead of forcing or white-knuckling something, I learned to embrace my strengths and weaknesses and create a schedule that left me feeling accomplished and empowered more often than not."
