Keeping Our Promises

Dan, Jake and Teddy

Have you ever had a friend that often cancelled at the last minute, or was always at least half hour late?  Or maybe they promise to help, and then forget?  After a while it is hard to trust that a friend like that will do what they say.  We would never be like that, right?  I think most of us work really hard to keep the promises we make to others, but do we do the same with the promises we make to ourselves?

I was reading a book yesterday by Rachel Hollis and she talks about this.  How many times have we told ourselves that we are going to exercise, or eat right, and then we give up after not too many days -- if we start at all.  I am like that, and it was a bit of an aha moment when I read about not keeping promises to ourselves.  I am not always being a good friend to me!  But how to fix this?  It is much easier to break a promise to myself than to break a promise to someone else. 

Rachel talked about a couple of things that I think are helpful.  First, be very intentional about any promise we make -- to anyone, including ourselves.  Check the calendar.  Make sure there is really time to do what we are promising.  Write it down.  Don't double or triple book ourselves so we don't have time.  Second, break down whatever it is we are wanting to do so that it is easy to succeed.  If we normally do no exercise, we probably aren't going to succeed at running five miles a day right off the bat.  Make an easily attainable goal and do it for long enough that we feel the joy of having succeeded -- and then make it a little harder. 

No matter what kind of promise we make to ourselves, we should try to keep it just like we would any promise we make to others.