Keeping Promises To Myself

There’s something about keeping promises to myself that is so much harder than keeping promises to others. I think in general I’m pretty good at keeping promises. I’d say roughly 95% of the time I keep the promises I make to others. I hate how that sounds, but I'm not going to lie and say that I’m perfect because I’m definitely not. Promises to myself are a completely different story. I’d say I’m at about a 50% keep rate on promises to myself. Abysmal to say the least. I keep wracking my brain trying to figure out why there is such a huge difference and all I can come up with is that I don’t feel like I’m betraying myself when I break a promise I made to myself. On the other hand, it feels like a horrific betrayal when I break a promise to someone else.

To some degree, I think this is human nature. A promise to someone else will have weight, a deeper meaning of connection and trust. Maybe other people are better at this than me and therefore feel differently, but I don’t think there is ever much weight behind the promises I make to myself. There’s no one to hold me accountable and no broken bond. It feels like when you tell yourself you aren’t going to do any late-night snacking, but then 11 pm rolls around and you think to yourself, ‘Oh who cares,’ and go right along snacking. Is that relatable to anyone else?

Have you ever heard that saying about talking to or treating yourself like your best friend? The saying is usually used in the context of negative self-talk. For example, when I mess something up my first reaction is to call myself a moron and berate myself for being so stupid, but I would never in a million years do that to my best friend. If my best friend were to make a mistake, I would tell her everyone makes mistakes and give her as many examples and reasons as I could to prove that it isn’t a big deal and everything will be fine. While I clearly need to take this advice in the intended context (my self-talk is a “yikes” situation), I think it would benefit me to also use this when it comes to promises. I need to keep promises to myself like I would keep a promise to my best friend. It should hold that same amount of weight and importance.

All of this is a lot easier said than done. Having no accountability except for my expectations of myself is most definitely a challenge. That said, I can’t help but wonder if I’ll see benefits in my self-confidence and self-worth the more I keep my promises to myself. Something tells me that putting more effort into the promises I make to myself will have a pretty clear correlation with how I feel about myself as well as bettering my relationship with myself. Step one, make a promise to myself and keep it. My promise to myself is to value my feelings and not belittle or minimize them. I owe it to myself to keep that one. What is a promise you can make to yourself and keep?