Promise to Yourself = Daily Action

I love the word “promise”!

As a Success Coach for entrepreneurs, coaches and consultants, a lot of my work involves asking my clients thought provoking questions and helping them re-frame their mindset to a more positive outlook.

Sometimes, just substituting a word or two can make all of the difference, like using the word “promise”.

We make commitments to other people, weighing their requests and agreeing to what we can do. Making a promise to someone increases your level of commitment to your agreements and establishes trust.   Promises kept build trust, like deposits in a bank account.   Promises broken are like withdrawals, depleting our ‘trust’ funds.

I promise….I will take the kids to soccer on Saturday

I promise…. I will finish the report by 5pm tonight

I promise…. I will clean my bedroom this weekend

I promise…. I will attend the committee meeting

When you make a promise, it’s going to happen. You’ve committed and blocked off the time and space to honour your promise.   But you’ve also adjusted the commitment to ensure that you can keep your promise.   You haven’t agreed to ‘everything’….just the steps you can actually do.

Promising has integrity and commitment built into it.

Use it for yourself….make some new promises to yourself.   Decide on a tiny daily action and promise yourself that you will complete it before the end of your day.  The key is to make the promise tiny, and keep the action step tiny, so that it becomes impossible to not keep the promise you’ve made.

I promise to make a green smoothie this morning for breakfast.

I promise to floss my teeth this evening.

I promise to write for 5 minutes on my novel today.

Once you’ve made the promise, keep it.   Make the deposit in your own ‘trust’ fund and discover the liberating power behind a promise kept to yourself.   Your life will never be the same again.