How often have you started the week saying:
- “This week I’m going to eat healthy.”
- “This week I will work out more.”
- “I am going to get to that book this week, make some time to get back into reading.”
- “I will watch less TV this week and work on _______ instead.”
And then the week comes, and just carries you like the wind with its own momentum. You go with it and do what you have to do. Responsibilities, kids, work, running everyone to their events. At the end of the week you may have gotten a tiny bit done, but overall you feel disappointed in yourself, discouraged. You may even beat yourself up a little with those negative thoughts about how you can’t make progress and your life is just too busy for you to make time for yourself.
Let’s look at this from another perspective.
How do you feel when others in your life make promises to you and don’t follow through? The first time you feel horribly disappointed. You counted on this person and they bailed. But, over time you learn what to EXPECT from this person. Although they still may let you down, your expectations of follow through with them just isn’t very high. You know in general not to count on them for very important requests. You’ve essentially been trained by them to not count on them at all.
How do you feel about those people in your life that never fail on you? No matter what you ask of them, no matter how big or how small they ALWAYS come through for you? It takes all the worry out of it. If I ask I know she will take care of it. Problem solved. End of story. How did you come to this level of trust with this person? They came through for you in the past. Multiple times. Over and over again they have shown they can be trusted. They’ve earned your complete trust.
Now, lets come back to YOU.
Every time you make a promise to yourself you have an opportunity to either build and improve on the relationship you have with yourself or tear it down. You can either act to generate trust in yourself or choose an action to destroy it. Most of us have never thought about what happens when we let ourselves down. Over time we can build trust with OURSELVES. The relationship we have with ourselves works exactly the same way it does with other people. Every time we make a promise to ourselves and we keep it, we build ourselves up. We build up our integrity. We see our immense value and learn to count on ourselves the same way we count on that other person who never lets us down. Its a relationship building with yourself. How has your trust building with yourself been going? Are you someone YOU can count on?
So, what to do? Stop with the general, vague, uncommitted, too optimistic promises to yourself. Instead pick out one or two SMALL actions you will take to move towards your overall goal. Put those small actions and the EXACT time you will work on them on your calendar the same way you would your kid’s doctor appointments. Maybe Tuesday and Thursday you are going to cook two healthy recipes for your family. Schedule the time. When are you going to shop for the groceries for this? Schedule the time. Many people are very resistant to calendaring their life. The first line of resistance is that its too structured, too rigid. Won’t work. Well, is what you’re doing working? Structuring your life priorities into your day is how you get where you want to go.
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” ― Annie Dillard
The structure actually gives you more freedom, not less. Try it. Put them on the calendar. Protect the time. Then honor these small commitments you’ve made with yourself. Do not over-promise, start small. This is a process. Follow through 100% on these small promises to yourself. You will build trust with yourself, increase your confidence and come to know what you are really capable of.
And let me assure you….you are capable of truly GREAT things! Start small, honor yourself, put it on your calendar. Once you’ve gained your own trust in small ways, and have built up that relationship with yourself grow from there. Once you trust yourself the promises can then get bigger. Put it on your calendar, honor yourself and become your own go-to person!