Often times we’ll keep a commitment to someone else but break that same commitment to ourself. It’s true isn’t it? Or maybe this doesn’t fit you at all, but you know people like this.
What is this? Why do we go to great lengths to keep a commitment to someone else, but won’t do the same when we’ve made a promise to ourself? And what do we do about it?
Reasons
I suspect that we do this because deep down we value other people more than ourself. We can hold this value to varying degrees. Some people will give significantly to someone in need while they’re in the middle of real financial hardship themselves. Others will be more balanced, but will still exhibit this in some form.
Another reason we might do this is because we are seeking approval from others. If we keep our commitments to them, then we might receive some form of approval. If we keep our commitment to ourself, well, an approval from ourself may seem a bit hollow. So, we don’t worry if we break a commitment to ourself.
Work Arounds
I call this section “work arounds” because we’re not likely to have it fixed in a nice unicorn moment. We’ll have to keep working on this habitually to make a real internal change. Here are a few things we can do to work around this phenomenon.
- Make a promise to someone
Then it shifts from doing it for ourself to doing it indirectly for this other person. We can have this person hold us accountable to keeping our promise. - Put money on the line
Set it up so we lose money if we don’t do what we intended to do. - Give affirmations
Everyday, say out loud something like, “I am worth keeping commitments to myself.”
Once we start to keep our promises to ourself, it will boost our self-esteem and our self confidence. We’ll begin to realize what damage we’ve been doing to ourself by not keeping our own commitments and promises.
Join the conversation. What do you do to keep commitments to yourself?
